Like the main
character in Christopher Nolan's noir film Memento, members of the House
and Senate intelligence committees seem to have lost their short-term
memory. They can't remember who exactly pedaled Bush's lies about Saddam's
illusory weapons of mass destruction. They recall Iraq had WMD at one
time, although they say nothing about who provided those weapons (the US
government did). Looking around for scapegoats to cover Bush's calculated
lies, or rather the calculated lies of his neocon advisors -- Bush only
repeats what these advisors tell him -- members of the intelligence
committees are determined to blame the CIA for "bad intelligence," for the
absurd contrivances repeated by the president. . . (full
article)

Presidential Candidates:
Compared to What?
by Norman Solomon

Engaged in a
continuous PR blitz, presidential campaign strategists always strive to
portray their candidate as damn near perfect. Even obvious flaws are apt
to be touted as signs of integrity and human depth. Such media spin
encourages Americans to confuse being excellent with being preferable.
Eager to dislodge George W. Bush from the White House, many voters lined
up behind John Kerry in late January. It’s true that the junior senator
from Massachusetts is probably the best bet to defeat Bush -- and, as
president, Kerry would be a very significant improvement over the
incumbent. But truth in labeling should impel acknowledgment that Kerry is
not a progressive candidate. . . (full
article)

UN Spy Scandal on Iraq:
Prominent Americans Support
British Whistleblower
by The Institute for Public Accuracy

An array of
high-profile Americans -- including Rev. Jesse Jackson, feminist Gloria
Steinem, Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, leaders of the ACLU and the Newspaper
Guild, and artists such as Sean Penn, Bonnie Raitt and Martin Sheen --
released a joint statement Thursday (Jan. 29) in support of
Katharine Gun, a British whistleblower. Ms. Gun faces two years in
prison in England for alerting the public about U.S. spying on United
Nations diplomats aimed at securing U.N. approval for war against Iraq. .
. (full article)

Bush Administration Faces Growing Chaos
in Iraq While
Some Plan Expansion of War
by Jim Lobe

Retired Gen. Anthony
Zinni began warning that ousting Saddam Hussein, let alone invading Iraq,
risked destabilizing the entire Middle East back in 1998, when he led U.S.
Central Command and testified against the Iraq Liberation Act that made
“regime change” official U.S. policy. And just six months before the actual
invasion last March, in October 2002, he told the annual Fletcher Conference
on National Security Strategy, “we are about to do something that will
ignite a fuse in this region that we will rue the day we ever started.”
While President George W. Bush tried hard to project a sense of confidence
and control concerning Iraq and the larger Middle East in his State of the
Union Address on Tuesday, a careful look at the news this week suggested
that Zinni's fears were not unfounded. . .
(full article)

Will Dubya Dump Dick?
by Jim Lobe

While the rivals for the
Democratic presidential nomination battle it out in a succession of grueling
primary elections and caucuses, Vice President Dick Cheney appears to be
fighting to secure his spot on the Republican ticket behind President George
W. Bush. . . (full article)

W's Election Avoidance Syndrome
by Maria Tomchick

In his state of the
union address, George W. Bush pledged to "finish the historic work of
democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq." That's a promise which differs
markedly from the reality on the ground. . . (full
article)

Nothing to Preempt: According to the
CIA's Chief Weapons Inspector, There Were No WMD in Iraq. So Why Have More
than 500 Troops Died?
by Ray McGovern

Finally, some honesty.
But mounting problems for the White House. The CIA's chief weapons
inspector, David Kay, has driven the final nail into the coffin where rests
the Bush administration's policy of preemptive war. It turns out that there
was nothing to preempt. Which calls into question the real reason why more
than 500 U.S. troops have been killed and at least 6,000 severely
wounded—and why untold thousands of Iraqi army conscripts and civilians have
also been killed. . .
(full article)

New Study Documents
Evictions Scourge
by Kari Lydersen

"Two U.S. marshals
approached a two-story brick garden apartment building erected 50 years ago
for Washington D.C.-based military personnel. One rapped on the door and
shouted his presence. His partner fingered the gun at his hip…A young woman
talking on a cell phone opened the door and a small boy peered out through
her legs. As a dozen movers laboriously removed all the family's possessions
and threw them out on the street, a young girl "pointed at her toys tied up
in a bed sheet, carried away in a reverse Christmas morning where Santa
takes her gifts back up the chimney. She began to cry and hugged the woman's
legs. The oldest boy, perhaps five or six…his lips pinched and his jaw
tightened as his face filled with rage and helplessness, as he experienced
something hurtful beyond his control." This is how Michael Herlihy described
an eviction in a 1998 article, cited in the newly-released study "Evictions:
The Hidden Housing Problem". . . similar scenes are repeated every few
minutes around the country. . .
(full article)

How Global Warming May Cause
the Next Ice Age
by Thom Hartmann

While global warming is
being officially ignored by the political arm of the Bush administration,
and Al Gore's recent conference on the topic during one of the coldest days
of recent years provided joke fodder for conservative talk show hosts, the
citizens of Europe and the Pentagon are taking a new look at the greatest
danger such climate change could produce for the northern hemisphere - a
sudden shift into a new ice age. What they're finding is not at all
comforting. . .
(full article)

My Only Name is Returner
by Annie Higgins, Reporting from Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon

We are introducing
ourselves, and our host tells me, “In all honesty, I tell you that my only
name is “Returner/`A’id,” i.e. “one who is returning to his home.” This is
the masculine version of the name known to opera lovers for Verdi’s
heroine, Aida. You hear it frequently as a name for women, but not for
men. Our host never does say his real name, but I hear it when the others
address him. Another attendee, the convener of the poetry salon, defers to
“our professor,” the self-taught returner, and asks him to open the
session by reciting a poem. He agrees, but first introduces his daughter,
telling the story of her name. If the baby was a girl, he and his wife
decided they would call her Palestine. However, since he was away when she
was born, his wife yielded to the political tension of the times, giving
her the name of a fragrant flower instead. But he still calls her
Palestine. . .
(full article)

Recalling Pol Pot's
Terror, But Forgetting His Backers
by John Pilger

"S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine"
directed by Cambodian filmmaker, Rithy Panh, brings together survivors and
torturers from Pol Pot's death centre, Tuol Sleng, in extraordinary
scenes. But John Pilger reminds us that the genocide did not begin at
'Year Zero' with the Khmer Rouge, but with the secret and illegal American
bombing five years earlier, which killed 600,000 people and was the
catalyst Pol Pot was waiting for. . . (full
article)

January 29-30

Weapons of Mass Destruction Are Overrated
as a Threat to America
by Ivan Eland

David Kay, the
president’s handpicked weapons of mass destruction snoop in Iraq, has
resigned and criticized U.S. intelligence for not realizing that Iraqi
weapons programs were in disarray. He now thinks that the stocks of
chemical and biological weapons were destroyed in the 1990s — out of fear
that U.N. weapons inspectors would discover them — and that new production
was not initiated. He also believes that Iraq’s nuclear program had been
restarted but was only at a very primitive stage — hardly the imminent
threat alleged by the Bush administration as a justification for immediate
war. So with the final nail being driven into the coffin of the
administration’s main rationale for war against Iraq, Iraqi weapons
programs are not the only things in disarray. After Kay’s initial
comments, Secretary of State Colin Powell had to admit that the Iraqi
government may no longer have had such arms. . . (full
article)

He
did not say, "hello," or even his name, just left a one-word message:
"Whitewash." It came from an embattled journalist whispering from inside
the bowels of a television and radio station under siege, on a small
island off the coast of Ireland: from BBC London. And another call, from a
colleague at the Guardian: "The future of British journalism is very
bleak." However, the future for fake and farcical war propaganda is quite
bright indeed. Today, Lord Hutton issued his report that followed an
inquiry revealing the Blair government's manipulation of intelligence to
claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass murder threatening immanent
attack on London. . . (full article)

Concerns Grow Over Taliban
Resurgence, Opium
by Jim Lobe

Suicide
bombings that killed two peacekeepers from
Britain and
Canada in 48 hours have abruptly reminded Washington and its NATO allies
they face major challenges in ensuring sufficient security in Afghanistan to
hold credible elections scheduled for June. Already, some officials are
suggesting the vote might have to be rescheduled as a result of both delays
in the registration process and the security situation, particularly in the
south, southeast and eastern parts of the country, where the Taliban, which
was ousted by U.S.-led forces in late 2001, is resurgent. . . Reports this
week that the Pentagon is preparing a major "spring offensive" against the
Taliban and members of the al-Qaeda terrorist group, both in Afghanistan and
across the border in Pakistan, suggest Washington has opted for a
proactive strategy aimed precisely at minimizing the ability of those groups
to disrupt the elections. . . (full article)

Iraqi Democracy and Anti-Chomsky
Tantrums: Some Reflections on
Power and Dissent
by Derek Seidman

The great historian E.H. Carr once advised to
“Study the historian before you begin to study the facts… By and large, the
historian will get the type of facts he wants." The principle behind this
advice is pretty obvious, and it need not be confined to the practice of
history: reality will be framed in a way as to support the legitimacy and
interests of those doing the framing. If the latter happen to possess real
power—especially control of the mass media, educational institutions, and so
forth— their version of history and reality will be all the more dominant.
The Iraqi people are being taught a blunt lesson in what does and does not
constitute legitimate history. A January 20 article from Reuters is quite
revealing, if one was lucky enough to catch it before it quickly left the
headlines. Titled “Iraqis want to see Saddam’s American allies on Trial”,
the report began: "If Iraqis ever see Saddam Hussein on trial, they want his
former American allies shackled beside him." . . . (full
article)

Kerry vs. Dean; New Hampshire vs. Iraq
by Rahul Mahajan

So the results are in.
After shellacking Dean in Iowa, Kerry once again won a very convincing
victory in New Hampshire. Democrats who made up their minds last year tended
to favor Dean, while those who made up their minds in the last four weeks
favored Kerry; those who voted based on the issues favored Dean, while those
who voted based on "electability" favored Kerry. Some cast this as a matter
of Kerry's greater experience in Washington, dealing with national and
international issues. Much more important, however, is the elephant in the
room that Democratic strategists alternately discuss feverishly and ignore:
the significance of Iraq in the upcoming election. . .
(full article)

A Populist Make-Over: Meet
John Edwards, the Corporate Man
by Doug Ireland

John Edwards has the best
smile, the best hair and the most effective populist discourse of all the
Democrats who want to be president. His endlessly repeated “Two Americas”
stump speech — flaying the haves for fleecing the have-nots — has been
carefully honed over months on the campaign trail. It won him second place
in Iowa. But it takes more than one speech to give a contender real staying
power — as the cash-strapped Edwards discovered when, by an eyelash, he lost
the third-place ticket out of New Hampshire to a treasury-rich general with
a weightier résumé. But what’s under the hair and behind the smile? (full
article)

Does New Hampshire Mean
Anything? Nervous Dems Beg Nader
Not to Run
by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair

The facial topography of
Senator John Kerry -- gravity and the exactions of time pulling his features
inexorably southward, a forlorn Hawthornian feel to the whole ensemble --
remind us of another conqueror of New Hampshire in 1972: Senator Ed Muskie
of Maine, on whose cheek a single tear (or was it just a snow flake?) turned
into a mighty river of defeat as the press derided him for being a cry-baby,
chided him for not winning by a larger margin and consigned him to history's
trashcan, same way they're trying to do with Howard Dean. . . (full
article)

Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
by Mickey Z.

General
Wesley Clark is a war criminal.
Filmmaker Michael Moore is clueless.
This is a love story. . . (full article)

Democracy Now! Confronts
Wesley Clark Over his Bombing of Civilians, Use of Cluster Bombs and
Depleted Uranium, and the Bombing of Serb TV
by Jeremy Scahill and Democracy Now!

In a Democracy Now!
exclusive, General Wesley Clark responds for the first time to in-depth
questions about his targeting of civilian infrastructure in Yugoslavia, his
bombing of Radio Television Serbia, the use of cluster bombs and depleted
uranium, the speeding-up of the cockpit video of a bombing of a passenger
train to make it appear as though it was an accident and other decisions he
made and orders he gave as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander. . . (full
article)

(Israel-Palestine) There's
No Democracy Like No Democracy by Neve Gordon

JERUSALEM: Anyone
who follows the news has no doubt come across the claim that “Israel is
the only democracy in the Middle East.” Usually, this claim is followed by
its logical inference: “As an island of freedom located in a region
controlled by military dictators, feudal kings and religious leaders,
Israel should receive unreserved support from western liberal states
interested in strengthening democratic values around the globe.” Over the
years, some of the fallacies informing this line of argument have been
exposed. Whereas many commentators have emphasized that foreign policy is
determined by selfish interests rather than by moral dictates, few
analysts have challenged the prevailing view that Israel is the only
democracy in the Middle East. . . (full
article)

“If You Organize, You Can
Win": Philly School Workers Fight
for Fair Contract
by M. Junaid Alam

Fed up with their
inexcusably low poverty-line wages and bare-minimum medical care,
Full-time Food Service Workers and Noon Time Aides working for the
Philadelphia school District have been waging a campaign for decent wages
and benefits. Recently M. Junaid Alam, co-editor of the new radical youth
journal Left Hook
had the opportunity to discuss the situation with Warren Heyman, chief
negotiator for Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees International
Union Local 634 and Secretary Treasurer of Local 217. . . (full
article)

Marriage and the Moon: A Curious Union
State of the Union Address is Wedding-Veiled Endorsement of Right Wing's
Anti-Same-Sex Marriage Amendment
by Bill Berkowitz

It’s
a deluge of bad news Bush stories: Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neill's revelations on the genesis of the war in Iraq --
initiated within weeks of President Bush taking office; O’Neill’s
criticism of the president's less-than-commanding performance during
cabinet meetings;
a report by the Army War College's Jeffrey Record, calling the war on
terrorism unfocused and the war on Iraq "a strategic error"; reports and
news stories confirming no weapons of mass destruction stockpiles in Iraq.
Inundated by stories such as these, Team Bush came up with its own
unlikely union of initiatives -- one that shoots for the Moon and Mars,
and one that aims to protect and encourage marriages here on Earth. . . (full
article)

American Taliban: The
Ignorant and Damaging Politics
of George W. Bush
by Manuel Valenzuela

In the United States we
have a group, conservative and unenlightened, ignorant to the tunes of
history, in many ways similar but not as extreme as the Taliban, that is
trying to impose unclimbable walls of razor sharp wire around progress for
the sake of attempting to change our society to suit their conservative
agenda. George W. Bush, the American Taliban, heads this group. . . (full
article)

The Education of Benny the Barbarian
by Ahmed Amr

First things first. Allow me to introduce
Benny the Barbarian, a Professor of history at Ben-Gurion University. His
opinions are considered progressive in Israel and in certain western
circles, including The Guardian, a leftist British paper that
regularly publishes his articles. Of late, Benny the Barbarian has come
across newly released documents from Israeli Archives that deal with the
ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948. . . In an
interview with Haaretz, Benny “the barbarian” Morris voiced
some candid and disturbing opinions about his newly acquired knowledge.
Being a barbarian, Morris apparently enjoyed the accounts of massacres,
rapes and forced transfers. So much so, that he opines that Ben Gurion was
a wimp who didn’t have the stomach to finish off the Palestinians by
cleansing them all the way to the Jordan River. He goes on to make a case
for future episodes of ethnic cleansing that would include the possible
transfer of Israeli Arabs. Just
so you get a visual of Benny the Barbarian, the account in Haaretz
noted that Morris “describes horrific war crimes offhandedly, paints
apocalyptic visions with a smile on his lips.” Remember that smile as you
review the discoveries of Benny the Barbarian. Here, in his own words, is
a sample of the atrocities that so delighted this Israeli "progressive"
historian. . . (full article)

Here Come Da’ Judge, Here
Come Da’ Judge!
by Jack Dalton

What has and is happening to our basic
founding principals of “…establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility,
provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare…”, and remember
“…Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…” For one, I will not sit idle
and silent while neo-con, right-wing, hand picked judges attempt to tell us
that those words do not carry constitutional weight, while at the same time
making decisions that are effectively handing this country over to
multi-national corporate America. It has been and is the duty and obligation
of our federal courts to help preserve, protect and guarantee that those
“ideas” are adhered to by all, all the time. But what if the federal court
system becomes a collection of right-wing judges that are political
ideologues? Just take a brief look at the decisions being handed down by the
Bush appointed federal judges and it’s not to difficult to see what the
result to this country will be. . . (full
article)

January 27-28

Dean, Democrats, and
Democracy
by Paul Street

Left democrats
should not mourn the Iowa debacle and possible unraveling of Howard Dean’s
supposedly populist Democratic presidential campaign. There are at least
two reasons for them to hold back the tears. . .
(full
article)

Last autumn, long before
Democratic Party insiders Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Sen. John
Edwards of North Carolina finished one-two in the Iowa Caucus, the most
important primary of the political season was already underway. But unlike
the Iowa Caucus, or the Washington DC primary held one week before it, this
primary does not involve actual voters going to the polls. Rather, it is the
process through which major news outlets "elect" the presidential
front-runners and frame the issues, thus setting the boundaries for
acceptable political discussion. Such a process - call it the Media Primary
- established Kerry and, to a lesser degree, Edwards as serious candidates
worthy of attention, while at the same time, it declared the campaigns of
several other candidates to be unworthy of public interest. . . (full
article)

Top Ten Responses To "I Love
Kucinich But He Can't Win"
by Ted Daley

How many times have you heard
someone say: "I love Kucinich ... but I just don't think he's electable"?
I often encounter staffers for other candidates out here in Los Angeles
where I'm based, and even they often say these words to me. Saul Landau
recently said on National Public Radio that Dennis's name has apparently
been changed to the hyphenated "Kucinich-ButHeCan'tWin." The Congressman
himself has been asked about the phenomenon repeatedly in the presidential
debates. Our campaign's overarching theme is 'Fear Ends / Hope Begins.'
Over and over again, people say to us: "Dennis stands for so many of my
hopes and dreams. But I so intensely fear George Bush's re-election ...
that I will not vote for Dennis, or donate to Dennis, or volunteer for
Dennis. I will support instead some other, lesser candidate who does not
really reflect my aspirations for the human community, but who has a
better chance of winning on November 2nd." At the Kucinich campaign, we
believe our single most effective strategy now to gain new votes is to
move these individuals to change their minds. . . (full
article)

The State of the Media Union
by Norman Solomon

My fellow American media
consumers: At a time when news cycles bring us such portentous events as the
remarkable wedding of Britney Spears, the advent of Michael Jackson's actual
trial proceedings and the start of the Democratic presidential primaries, it
is time to reflect upon the state of the media union. . .
(full article)

Will There be Jobs on the Moon?
by Mark Weisbrot

Will there be jobs on the
moon? Or will American workers have to wait until we get to Mars? These
kinds of questions were inevitable as the White House announced a bold new
initiative to establish a base on the moon, as a first step towards sending
people to Mars. On the same day, the Labor Department surprised everyone by
reporting that only 1000 new jobs had been gained for the month of December.
. .
(full article)

Runaway Corporate Compensation Packages
Gaining Speed
by Ralph Nader

In reading the latest
news reports of uncontrollable corporate greed, I recalled the cover of
Fortune Magazine about 2 years ago which headlined the runaway
compensation packages of the big corporate bosses and why nothing would be
done about it. Also recalled was the Business Week cover story in the
year 2000 titled "Too Much Corporate Power?" which this leading magazine
answered yes! yes! yes! in a long article. The editors took a poll and found
72% of the responders believed that corporations had too much control over
their lives. And that response was before the corporate crime wave (Enron,
Worldcom, Tyco, Wall Street, etc.) that looted or drained trillions of
dollars from tens of millions of small investors, workers and pension
holders! Now comes Jason Adkins, the leading attorney challenging
self-enriching conversions of mutual insurance companies to stock companies,
to report on the John Hancock shenanigans. With apologies to the American
patriot, John Hancock, whose name this company seized and slandered, here is
what the top executives pulled off. . . (full
article)

Monkey See, Monkey Do
by Peter Kurth

Last week, in
anticipation of George W. Bush’s State of the Union address, I took steps to
prevent a full-scale attack on my intelligence and credulity by shutting off
the television, powering down the computer, turning out the lights,
canceling the newspaper, drawing the blinds, locking the doors, hopping into
bed and pulling the covers over my face for two whole days. I believe this
is what the people at Homeland Security recommend during a Red Alert, which,
in my opinion, any speech from Boo-Boo Brain automatically becomes. Well, it
didn’t work. I got a nice rest, but that was all. Because, when I dared to
come out again, there he still was, reprinted, re-broadcast and re-spun,
lying through his teeth about “peace” and “prosperity,” vowing to keep the
world safe from “terrorists,” posing, strutting, taunting, smirking, turning
black into white and tin into gold. . .
(full article)

Cold, Dead Fish & Shiny Steelhead Awards
For 2003
by Dan Bacher

The year 2003 saw a
number of tragedies in the efforts of conservation groups to restore our
state’s marine, anadromous and fresh water fisheries. Just as the Klamath
River fish kill dominated the headlines in 2002, the horrendous fish kill of
90 percent of the threatened spring chinook run on Butte Creek in July and
August was the big fishery story of 2003. Other notable setbacks included
the die off of salmon fingerlings and the dewatering of steelhead redds
(nests) after flows on the American River were reduced by the U.S. Bureau of
Reclamation in February. . .
(full article)

What's Left?
by Adam Engel

Don't get me wrong. I'm
no corporatist. I don't know anything about markets, free or otherwise, so I
really have no right to comment on them. Nevertheless, my natural hatred of
authority, and something inside me that says that every child should have at
least a decent opportunity to get an education, three squares a day, and
sleep every night with a roof over his head, and old and sick people should
have access to medical care, naturally pushed me to the left side of the
spectrum, where I thought these values were cherished. On the other hand,
I'm no socialist, I don't believe in any kind of government doing anything
but, if the people so decide, building roads, schools and hospitals, with
money the people decide to allocate, not have taken from them, stolen
actually, to the tune of 40 percent of their yearly income. . . (full
article)

Lula Visits India: Standing
Up to US Trade Bullying
by Ashok B. Sharma

India celebrates its
55th Republic Day on January 26, 2004. The guest of honour on the occasion
is President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil. This is the best tribute
which India can pay to the architect of G-22 coalition and a friend of the
Third World farmers. . . (full article)

January 26

The Patriarch Act: Who
Wants to Marry a Welfare Queen?
by Leilla Matsui

In his recent "Disgrace
of the Union" speech, President Bush once again highlighted his
administration's bent knee proposal to deal with the problems facing
low-income women; particularly single mothers. In three words: marry them
off. Under his recently "unveiled" $1.5 billion "marriage initiative,"
$100 million dollars a year of taxpayer's money will be distributed among
religious organizations to coerce low-income couples out of sinful
co-habitation, with the other half going to state agencies to do pretty
much the same thing. Administration Tribal Elders are clearly hoping to
revive the archaic tradition of placing daughters on the matrimonial
chopping block in the hopes of fobbing them off to the highest bidder, or
in many cases, the guy who knocked them up in the first place. . . (full
article)

Celestial Land Grabs and
the Demise of Science
by Barbara Sumner Burstyn

Bush's rhetoric has been inspiring, filling
us all with images of the great advances opening for mankind, as if travel
to the moon and Mars were the apex of science and, therefore, humanity.
Certainly back when John F. Kennedy announced America's race to the moon
it was. Sure it was about beating the Soviets but it was also about
nation-building, a vast quest underpinned by the desire to make America
the leading scientific nation in the world. But this time around you don't
have to be a rocket scientist to realize things are a little different. .
. there's the extensive investigation released last year on the
state of science in Bush's America. Prepared by Democratic Representative
Henry Waxman, the report, "Politics and Science - Investigating the State
of Science Under the Bush Administration," charges the White House with
misusing science to advance a conservative agenda. . . (full
article)

Dennis Kucinich and the Question
by William Rivers Pitt

The three most powerful
letters in American politics are ‘FDR.’ Franklin Roosevelt unleashed a
political revolution so powerful and complete that it required the
incredible extremism of the Bush administration to bring it to heel. That
is not to say the revolution wasn’t flagging before George took the Oval
Office chair. Democratic Presidents and Presidential hopefuls have been
running on Roosevelt rhetoric since the titan died in his fourth term, but
the facts on the ground are clear. The country has been steadily
retreating from the legacy of FDR for decades. Enter Dennis Kucinich,
Democratic congressman from Ohio, former Mayor of Cleveland, and
candidate for President in
2004. There is not a single polling indicator that puts him above ten
percent support at this point, and he managed only a 1% showing in the
Iowa caucuses. Pragmatism dictates that he is merely tilting at windmills,
but a closer look reveals something far different in play. . .
(full article)

On The Campaign Trail,
Bush Talks About Job Training
by Seth Sandronsky

President Bush spoke on Jan. 21 about
training for workers in Arizona and Ohio. In the 2000 election, he barely
beat Democrat Al Gore in both states. The president’s campaign for a
second term faces a bit of a “soft patch” around national job creation. A
job loss economy with growth equals a potentially big presidential
campaign issue. Karl Rove, Bush’s main political adviser, knows it.
Millions of U.S. workers are living it. . . (full
article)

The Trouble With CAFTA
by Mark Engler

On December 17 officials from Guatemala,
Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua finished negotiations with the United
States on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). CAFTA is a bad
deal, one that promises to extend the harmful impacts of NAFTA to Mexico's
weaker southern neighbors. At the same time, boosters like US Trade
Representative
Robert Zoellick are premature in declaring victory for their hemispheric
"free trade" agenda. A week of intense negotiations in Washington
demonstrated that developing countries are not as easily browbeaten as in
the past. And the coming fight to stop ratification of the agreement will
likely show opponents of corporate globalization to be in a stronger
position than ever...
(full article)

Higher Education is More than Corporate
Logo
by Henry A. Giroux

Anyone
who spends anytime on a college campus these days cannot miss how higher
education is changing. Strapped for money and increasingly defined in the
language of corporate culture, many universities seem less interested in
higher learning than in becoming licensed storefronts for brand name
corporations--selling off space, buildings, and endowed chairs to rich
corporate donors. . . (full article)

American Ali Baba: George W. Bush and the
Stealing of America
by Manuel Valenzuela

Iraqis have a slang term for those whom they
believe guilty of thievery and chicanery, those people who steal, lie,
cheat and are endowed with low levels of scruples. This term, Ali Baba, in
reference to the great fictional work Arabian Nights and its story,
Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, has, since the occupation began,
spread throughout Iraq’s population when talking about American soldiers,
and, to a more extreme personality, George W. Bush. . . (full
article)

The Hour Before Dawn
by Nick Pretzlik in Jerusalem

Returning to Jerusalem yesterday, an Israeli
soldier at the Bethlehem checkpoint glanced at my passport and mumbled
"Did you enjoy the visit?" "Yes" I replied. "Well," he said pointing
towards the town "it stinks in there. I smell it every day." Taken aback,
I asked "What do you mean?" He repeated the comment and waved me through.
The previous day at the al Hamra checkpoint, south of Jenin, I had watched
a soldier order people out of their cars. It was 7:00 in the morning and
the slopes of the hills down one side of the valley were bathed in soft
dawn light. Songbirds flitted from tree to tree and the valley floor was
lush and green – the sky pristine blue. An extensive queue of cars taking
Palestinians to work had formed already and the soldier was strutting up
and down in Chaplinesque fashion, his rifle comically large in proportion
to his diminutive frame. Passengers were shouted instructions to line up
in front of him – even local UN personnel – and harangued, while he jabbed
his finger repeatedly in their direction. The intention was to humiliate
and the process continued until appropriate signs of submission were
displayed. Only then were the passengers permitted to continue on their
way. The charade took hours and did nothing for security. But that was not
the intention. . . (full article)

Diagnosing Benny Morris: The Mind of a
European Settler
by Gabriel Ash

Israeli historian Benny Morris crossed a new
line of shame when he put his academic credentials and respectability in
the service of outlining the "moral" justification for a future genocide
against Palestinians. . . (full article)

January 24-25

For Whom The Death Tolls:
Deliberate Undercounting
of “Coalition” Fatalities
by Paul de Rooij

There is evidence of a
concerted effort afoot to obfuscate the number of casualties in the US-led
“war on terror.” May 1st was the day the president Bush landed
on an aircraft carrier and declared the end to the war and the start of
the occupation of Iraq. [1] Since then many casualty numbers have been
publicized, most of them disingenuous fudges of the real death toll.
There are many reasons why the casualty toll is understated, which we
dissect in this brief essay. . . (full
article)

Operating America From a
Bingo Hall
by Ahmed Amr

I am starting to
believe that America is currently operated from a bingo hall in Florida.
If this sounds outlandish, just pay a little attention to the neo-con lads
who now infest the corridors of power in the Beltway. Most Americans don’t
know what a neo-con looks like. You could load all the neo-cons in America
on a Greyhound bus and still have room for a dozen US marshals to
accompany them to their treason trials. Statistically, you are more likely
to meet an American Maoist than a neo-con of any nationality. If you think
I exaggerate the minuscule size of this political "movement", than how
come you’ve never met a real live neo-conservative? Just because these
freaks are constantly beamed into your living room by FOX doesn’t mean
they actually exist. In the real world you can’t find a trace of them on
the political landscape of America’s heartland. In political parlance,
they have no footprint, no constituency and are not a political party. . .
(full article)

The Sharon-Rumsfeld Plan: Going after
Hezbollah
by Kurt Nimmo

As Jane's
Intelligence Digest and the Jerusalem Post report, defense
secretary Donald Rumsfeld is considering "provoking a military
confrontation with Syria by attacking Hezbollah bases near the Syrian
border in Lebanon." The "multi-faceted US attacks" would fall under Bush's
war on terrorism, according to Douglas Davis of the Jerusalem Post,
the Israeli newspaper where the dual-allegiance Richard Perle, Pentagon
Defense Policy Board member,
serves as director. . . (full article)

In Defense of Polluters:
Howard Dean's Vermont
by Josh Frank

Governor
Howard Dean repeatedly defended dangerous levels of pesticide use on
Vermont farms. Vermonters for a Clean Environment has been reporting as
much ever since it issued a report almost a year ago, in March of 2002. .
. (full article)

Relinquishing Sovereignty:
People Power or the Police State

by Kim Petersen

Canadians
often distinguish themselves from Americans by pointing to Canada’s more
progressive social politics as opposed to the harder line conservatism of
the US. Cases in point are the Canadian reluctance to openly support an
invasion of Iraq, the push behind the international treaty banning
landmines (much to the chagrin of then US president Bill Clinton who found
himself alienated from the international Zeitgeist), relaxing of
marijuana possession laws, and recognition of same-sex marriages. These
progressive trends stand in stark juxtaposition to an emboldened surge of
the political right-wing in Canada. Canadian politics is beginning to resemble the same
two-corporate-party choice Americans have. . .
(full article)

We Refuse to Take Part in the Occupation
by Yonathan Shapira

I am Yonathan, one of the
initiators and signatories of the pilot’s letter. Until some weeks ago I
was a pilot and active leader in a squadron of “Blackhawk” helicopters in
the air force. On the eve of last Yom Kippur I was called for an
interview with the commander of the air force, wherein he told me that I
was dismissed and that I was not a pilot anymore in the Israeli air force
and all this because I announced that I will not agree to take part in
obeying illegal and immoral orders. . .
(full article)

Bush's Iraq an
Appointocracy
by Naomi Klein

“The people of Iraq
are free,” declared U.S. President George W. Bush in Tuesday’s State of
the Union. The day before, 100,000 Iraqis begged to differ. They took to
the streets of Baghdad shouting “Yes, yes to elections. No, no to
selection.” According to Iraq occupation chief Paul Bremer, there really
is no difference between the White House’s version of freedom and the one
being demanded on the street. Asked Friday whether his plan to form an
Iraqi government through appointed caucuses was headed towards a clash
with Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani ’s call for direct elections, Bremer said he
had no “fundamental disagreement with him.” It was, he said, a mere
quibble over details. . . (full
article)

Bush's Move-On Mantra Bludgeons
Democracy: Stephen Kinzer's Book Documenting the CIA's 1953 Coup in Iran
Provides a Footprint to the Current Mess in Iraq
by Bill Berkowitz

President Bush's
State of the Union address was one small example of self-aggrandizing
puffery and one large chutzpatic attempt to wipe the failed occupation of
Iraq from our collective memory. I'll let you decide if the president: a)
said enough about the hundreds of US and Iraqi dead and the thousands of
US and Iraqi wounded; b) recognized the reality of bombs bursting in cars
on the streets of Baghdad and other cities; c) explained why he won't
extend the time for investigating the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon; and d) addressed Paul Bremer's desperate attempts
to get the United Nations involved in resolving the question of elections
in Iraq. Did Bush really say that David Kay had discovered evidence of
dozens of "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" in
Iraq? And, did the president actually boast of the involvement of Norway
and El Salvador in his bought-and-paid-for "coalition of the willing?"
(full article)

I, Clitoris
by Adam Engel

Shame on you
thinking with your monkey heads these 5 thousand years. Shame on you all
for wasting this planet without at least consulting me. Your heads above
and below incurred this outrageous bill from Mother Earth, but we're out
of all the Time we borrowed we have no collateral we cannot pay we’re
through as a species, finished. . . (full
article)

January 22-23

No
Child's Behind Left: The New Educational Eugenics in Bush's State
of the Union
by Greg Palast

Go
ahead, George, and lie to me. Lie to my dog. Lie to my sister. But don't you
ever lie to my kids. Deep into your State of the Siege lecture last night,
long after sensible adults had turned off the tube or kicked in the screen,
you came after our children. "By passing the No Child Left Behind Act," you
said, "We are regularly testing every child ... and making sure they have
better options when schools are not performing." You said it ... and then
that little tongue came out; that weird way you stick your tongue out
between your lips like the little kid who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake
licking a rat. I saw that snakey tongue dart out and I thought, "He knows."
And what you know, Mr. Bush, is this: you've ordered this testing to hunt
down, identify and target for destruction the hopes of millions of children
you find too expensive, too heavy a burden, to educate. . . (full
article)

State of the Union 2004
by Rahul Mahajan

George
W. Bush's most recent state of the union address didn't contain the
caliber of bald-faced, smoking-gun lies that we have come to expect from
him, like the "sixteen words" in the last one (about Iraq supposedly
seeking uranium from "Africa"), but it was certainly replete with
dishonesty and misrepresentation. Disclaimer: The author in no way
undertakes to assure that the examples of dishonesty presented below
constitute an exhaustive list. . . (full
article)

The Real State of the
Union: A Nation in Crisis, an Economy in Disaster,
Soaring Poverty, Hunger, and Homelessness
by Jay Shaft

George
Bush went on TV Tuesday night and told us all how good it is in America
thanks to all the things he has done. He painted a rosy picture of economic
recovery, renewed prosperity, new job growth, and many victories in the war
on terror. The facts he presented to America did not even remotely resemble
the true facts behind the greatest crisis America has ever faced. No matter
how he described the current situation in America, nothing he said came
close to the truth about the real state of the union. The facts Bush used to
show how great we are doing are just so many more lies and deceptions on top
of an already long list of betrayals and deceits that he has committed
against the country as a whole. . .
(full article)

Misleading Rhetoric in 2004
State of the Union Address:
An Annotated Critique of Foreign Policy Segments
by Stephen Zunes

Stephen Zunes takes apart the foreign policy
side of Bush's State of the Union Address. Commentary you won't hear on CNN
or Faux News . . . (full article)

Does the American Election
Matter?
by John Chuckman

In America's early years,
only a few men of considerable substance could vote. Any concept of wider
democracy disturbed America's founding fathers as risking their wealth to
the votes and whims of men without any. With the gradual, unavoidable
extension of the American franchise over two hundred years of wars and
social movements, a political system gradually emerged preserving the
founders' concerns. Americans in theory can vote for anyone, but the
candidates they see and hear and whose names appear on all the ballots in so
vast a land will only be people effectively pre-selected by those of great
substance. It is an inherently conservative system. . . (full
article)

Election 2004: From One
Dance to Same Old Dance
by Mickey Z.

In the face of non-stop assaults on peace,
justice, and common sense, even hardened radicals are suddenly touting
mainstream Democratic candidates and ruthlessly attacking anyone who has
stuck to the belief that both parties merely offer different versions of
the same poison. Thanks to the antics of people like Rumsfeld and
Ashcroft, war criminal Wesley Clark has even convinced Michael Moore of
his "anti-war" status. Dubya and his cartoonish band of reactionaries have
accomplished something Al Gore couldn't manage: They've made the
Democratic Party appear distinct...even (shudder) progressive. From my
perspective, the key word in that last sentence is "appear." While the
parties are not monolithic (spending time with Cynthia McKinney will
convince anyone of that), at the highest level (i.e. presidential
candidates, powerful Senate and House members), perception surmounts
reality. Bush may talk the talk on national security while Ted Kennedy
regurgitates his pro-social services spiel but neither really gives a shit
about the soldiers dying Iraq or a disabled (dis-labeled?) child in an
inner city school. They're selling an image, a package...and we're the
all-too-willing consumers. . . (full
article)

The End of Freedom
by John Stanton

The American nation-state led by the Bush
Administration, and the transnational rebel group led by Bin Laden, has
brought to life the artificially fabricated insanity that Hannah Arendt so
dreaded. But the situation is far worse than she could have imagined. The
insanity that permeates the psyche of the United States of America and the
mysterious Al Qaeda is being carefully nurtured by Bush and Bin Laden, the
products of wealthy families intertwined in business dealings for decades.
Rather than trying to find a mid-point where some commonality and
reduction of violence might be found, these two zealots and their minions
have eliminated the possibility of any peaceful outcome and, instead,
daily sow the seeds of destruction for the causes they claim to promote.
In short, perpetual ideological conflict played out on the battlefields of
the world. . . (full
article)

Power, Propaganda and
Conscience in the War on Terror
Speech delivered on 1/12/04, University of Western
Australia in Perth
by John Pilger

I am a reporter, who
values bearing witness. That is to say, I place paramount importance in
the evidence of what I see, and hear, and sense to be the truth, or as
close to the truth as possible. By comparing this evidence with the
statements, and actions of those with power, I believe it’s possible to
assess fairly how our world is controlled and divided, and manipulated –
and how language and debate are distorted and a false consciousness
developed. . . (full article)

Why Do Iowans Like to
Caucus But Iraqis Don’t?
by Ivan Eland

Iowans
seem pretty happy with their quadrennial caucuses. The results are now in
and the 2004 presidential election season has been kicked off. Half a
world away, however, Iraqi Shiites have launched massive demonstrations
against the Bush administration’s plan for caucuses to elect an interim
national assembly. Why do Iowans love what Iraqi Shiites hate? (full
article)

The Syrian Threat
by Ran HaCohen

"Out
of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the
land" (Jer 1:14) is a verse every Israeli pupil learns by heart. This
biblical truth has never been more true than these days: the Syrian
President, in a major threat to the Jewish state, offers Israel to resume
peace talks. A blatant crime against
war itself.
Israel, understandably, is forced to defend itself. . . (full
article)

Iowa's Lessons
by Doug Ireland

The Dean movement was
always more interesting than its candidate. It carried seeds of hope for
the progressive left because it appeared to be coagulating a new,
grassroots, alternative power center within the Democratic Party to fight
its money-addicted, poll-driven establishment. But that movement was dealt
two fatal body blows Monday night—once by the Iowa voters, 82 percent of
whom voted against its candidate. And once by the candidate himself. . . (full
article)

Havoc in the Cornfields
by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair

The
prime beneficiary of the Iowa caucuses was the battered Iowa economy,
pulling in $100 per voter in the caucuses, spent by the candidates mostly
in TV advertising. In terms of political import history instructs that the
victory in these caucuses offers a high likelihood of imminent political
extinction. . . (full article)

Dancing with Dean, Coming Home to
Kucinich
by Stephen Dinan

A pervasive illusion has
been dissolved this week, creating an opportunity for a powerful step
forward. It's an illusion that has gone under the banner of "electability"
-- rational people assessing which candidate has the best chance of beating
Bush. Underneath the surface debate, there's another truth, driven more by
fear and emotion than an accurate appraisal of the landscape. People have
been afraid that, in order to defeat a colossal bully, we need an even more
macho fighter in our corner. And thus a lot of very well-meaning people
propelled Dean to the foreground, believing his fire, attitude and
military-like campaign would prove a clear match for the other, much nastier
bully. A natural, very human instinct. Round 1 is over. The unstoppable,
win-win-win bluster of our favored tough guy detonated back on him. . . (full
article)

Michael Moore, McGovern Surrender to Clark
by Matthew Rothschild

In
a sign of abject and anyone-but-Bush desperation, leftie filmmaker Michael
Moore and George McGovern, the dove of the Democrats in 1972, have both come
out for General
Wesley Clark. Moore, in a January 14 posting on his website, wrote, "I
believe that Wesley Clark will end this war. He will make the rich pay their
fair share of taxes. He will stand up for the rights of women, African
Americans, and the working people of this country. And he will cream George
Bush." Why Moore thinks Clark will get the United States out of Iraq and end
that war is beyond me. . . (full article)

The States of Iowa and the Union Agree:
Bush Can Be Beaten
by Harvey Wasserman

Is the tide turning?
George W. Bush and his puppetmaster Karl Rove tried to upstage the Democrats
with a State of the Union Address full of tricks and gimmicks, martian
distractions and rattling sabers. It backfired. The stunning results from
Iowa far overshadowed Bush's lame, malapropic stump speech. Space travel,
gay marriage, steriods in baseball, these are the burning issues for a
Republican Party smug enough to be certain they can steal any election. The
week's signature GOP moment came from Tom DeLay's Texas, where a woman who
sells vibrators was arrested for possessing more than two. In a state that's
just been redistricted to prevent any Democrats from going to Congress, we
see the GOP as the ultimate Luddites. Are Texas men that insecure? What will
they ban next? Massage oil? (full article)

January 20-21

George W. Bush and the
Real State of the Union
by The Independent (UK)

Today the President
gives his annual address. As the election battle begins, how does his
first term add up? (full article)

Planet Lunch Attacks Mars
by Leilla Matsui

As
if we didn't have enough to worry about here on "Terror Firma," the
Bushi'ites have now set their unblinking, beady eyes on space, starting
with a plan to extend Texas's borders to the moon and moving on to
conquering the war planet itself. In the wake of NASA's success with
"Spirit", a Mars probing rover now scouring the Martian soil for signs of
life, Bush has cashed in on the moment with a blank check to cover the
future costs of destabilizing the solar system, with the eventual goal of
establishing a permanent military presence on Mars. For the evil geniuses
plotting Intergalactic Armageddon from their revolving steakhouse
headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue, regime change can now be applied to
any ravaged and barren "wasteland", particularly ones ill-equipped to
defend themselves against their "liberators". . . (full
article)

An Urgent Apollo Project
Here on Earth
by Holly Sklar

When astronauts
first walked on the moon back in 1969, the original "Star Trek" had just
ended, our poverty rate was 12.1 percent, the unemployment rate was 3.5
percent, the federal budget had a surplus, the national debt was an
inflation-adjusted $1.8 trillion, the Vietnam War was raging, and the
National Environmental Policy Act signaled a greener future.
Three-and-a-half decades later, our poverty rate is 12.1 percent and
unemployment is nearly 6 percent, not counting workers so discouraged by
the longest job-loss period since the Great Depression they've given up
seeking work. The budget deficit zooms toward $500 billion, the national
debt is over $7 trillion, casualties mount in Iraq, and catastrophic
climate change is a real and present danger. With the state our union is
in, we must not squander billions to boldly go where man has gone before.
. . (full article)

Will Bush's State of the Union Speech
Lack the Hyperbole
That "Justified" War?
by Ray McGovern

Iraqi
chickens are coming to roost as President Bush's advisors attempt to draft
a State of the Union Message without the embarrassing flaws of their last
try. With last year's hyperbole -- replete with the knee-slapper about
Baghdad's seeking uranium in Africa -- forming part of the backdrop, they
have their work cut out for them. And the facts are not cooperating.
Administration claims originally adduced to justify war could not
withstand close scrutiny, and even the likes of columnist George Will have
disdainfully rejected ''retroactive'' justifications. The gap between
earlier claims about the Iraqi threat and last year's experience on the
ground has become a chasm too wide to be bridged by rhetorical finesse. .
. (full article)

Parecon: Toward an Equitable Economy
by Kim Petersen

It is
well established that money is increasingly concentrated in the hands of
fewer and fewer people. Neoliberalism has accelerated the ever-widening
gap between the haves and the have-nots. The developing nations are a
source of massive profits for the foreign corporations that exploit the
resources; meanwhile the locals become poorer. Within the rich nations,
the same economic dichotomization plays out with the poor becoming
increasingly worse off and the rich becoming obscenely richer. Is this the
kind of world that most people want? (full
article)

When is a Democracy Not a
Democracy?
by Barbara Sumner Burstyn

In a speech on
November 19 last year, President George W. Bush extolled the virtues of
democracy. "We will help the Iraqi people establish a peaceful and
democratic country in the heart of the Middle East," he said. The call for
democracy has become so constant that one Gulf-based political analyst,
Moghazy al-Badrawy, likens it to a boring, broken record that nobody
believes. But while Arabs are skeptical about America's motives and its
methods of bringing democracy to their world, closer to home few people
are querying the supposed base of their society. Perhaps they should be.
It's not only the growing reality of Fortress America and the increasing
level of civil constraints that are causing some Americans to question
their democratic basis; the integrity of the electoral system itself is
under fire. . . (full article)

Jenin: A Town of Wasted Hopes
by Nick Pretzlik in Jenin

The Israeli policy of early release from jail for hardened
criminals -- in exchange for military service in the Occupied Territories
-- coupled with the racist attitudes embedded in Israeli army culture
encourages the cycle of violence, which ensures that prospects for peace
in Palestine remain remote. Jenin, a trading centre on the northern fringe
of the West Bank, is a town of wasted hopes -– the debris of destruction
visible on every corner. . . (full
article)

Multiple Corporate
Personality Disorder
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

We hate to sound like your parents, but
people must take responsibility for their actions. Steal from the grocery
store, go to jail. Double park, pay the ticket. But why doesn't this
simple principle apply to corporations and their executives?
(full article)

While
some German politicians are worried about the closing of US military bases
in their regions, others fear nasty surprises will surface after the
Americans depart. The United States has consistently valued military power
more than the environment - but at what price? (full
article)

The Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You
Think
by Robert Higgs

When President Bush
signed the defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2004 on November 24,
2003, the event received considerable attention in the news media. At
$401.3 billion, the public's visible cost of funding the nation's defense
seemed to be reaching astronomical heights, and the president took pains
to justify that enormous cost by linking it to the horrors of 9/11 and to
the “war on terror.” He pledged that “we will do whatever it takes to keep
our nation strong, to keep the peace, and to keep the American people
secure,” clearly implying that such payoffs would accrue from the
expenditures and other measures that the act authorizes. Although the
public may appreciate that $401.3 billion is a great deal of money, few
citizens realize that it is only part of the total bill for defense. . . (full
article)

Letter from Israel: International Human Rights
March
by Gila Svirsky and Coalition of Women for Peace

The International
Human Rights March of Women has finally come to an end, and it was much
harder and more successful than any of us had hoped for. This was a 3-week
march (from December 20 through January 10) through Israel and Palestine,
and 100-150 women came from overseas to participate, in addition to the
locals - Palestinians and Israelis - who joined intermittently.
Women marched in all the major cities of Palestine (with the exception of
Nablus, then under curfew) and Israel (with the exception of Haifa).
Along the way, the women witnessed and often experienced the brutal heart
of the occupation -- checkpoints, curfews, closures, demolished homes, the
'security' wall, refugee camps, and -- on the Israeli side -- sites of
terrible suicide bombings. . . (full
article)

January 17-19, 2004

A False U.S. Recovery
by Seth Sandronsky

One thousand. That
is the total number of new jobs the U.S. economy created in December, the
Labor Department reported. On average, 65,000 new jobs were created each
of the three previous months. Then in December there was a sharp stop in
U.S. job creation. Officially, the American economy is in a recovery mode.
It is growing since the recession that began in March 2001 ended eight
months later. But recovering is not what the 309,000 people who left the
U.S. work force in December are doing. These hapless and nameless souls
are surely struggling to survive as best they can. . . (full
article)

The Case That Wouldn't Close
by Sheila Samples

Tom
Hurndall is dead. Nine months after being shot in the head by an Israeli
soldier which left him in a coma, two months after his 22nd birthday, and
one day after his mother knelt at his bedside and whispered the good news
that his assailant had finally been arrested, Tom Hurndall's name was
added to a growing, but mostly unmentioned, unheralded and unknown list of
innocents slaughtered by Ariel Sharon's brutal IDF (Israel Defense
Forces). Sadly, neither the young British photographer's meaningful life
nor his meaningless death created a discernable blip on the world media
screen. April 11, 2003 -- the day an IDF sniper atop a tower in Rafah took
careful aim with a telescopic lens and put a bullet into Herndall's
forehead -- was just another day in Gaza wherein the streets and alleys of
its towns are strewn with the dead, most of whom are guilty of the heinous
crime of daring to breathe while Palestinian. . . (full
article)

The administration of President George W.
Bush "systematically misrepresented" the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction (WMD), three non-proliferation experts from a prominent
Washington think tank charged last week. In a
107-page report, Jessica Mathews, Joseph Cirincione and George
Perkovich of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) called
for the creation of an independent commission to fully investigate what
the U.S. intelligence community knew, or believed it knew, about Iraq's
WMD programme from 1991 to 2003, and whether its analyses were tainted by
foreign intelligence agencies or political pressure. . . (full
article)

Memo for the President: Your
State-of-the-Union Address
by Ray McGovern and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

We
write this, our fifth such memorandum to you since our critique of
Secretary of State Colin Powell's UN speech last February, out of concern
that the same advisers who served you so poorly in drafting the Iraq
section of last year's state-of-the-union address will embarrass you
again. Your credibility and that of the intelligence community suffered a
major blow from the hyperbole that characterized that speech-not to
mention the infamous 16 words based on the forgery alleging that Iraq was
seeking uranium in Africa. The panel led by Gen. Brent Scowcroft, whom you
asked to investigate how that wound up in your speech, reportedly
attributes it to desperation on the part of your staff to "find something
affirmative" to support claims like those made by Vice President Dick
Cheney that Saddam Hussein had "reconstituted" Iraq's nuclear program. We
suggest you ensure that those over-eager functionaries responsible for the
16 words, and for your claim last spring that weapons of mass destruction
had been found in the form of two "bio-trailers"-since proven to be
generators of hydrogen for weather balloons-take no hand in drafting this
year's address. . . (full article)

Bad Days at Indian Point: Inside America's Most Dangerous
Nuclear Power Plant
by Jeffrey St. Clair

These are desperate
days for Entergy, the big Arkansas-based power conglomerate that owns the
frail Indian Point nuclear plant, located on the east bank of the Hudson
River outside Buchanan, New York-just 22 miles from Manhattan. First, a
scathing report by a nuclear engineer fingered Indian Point as one of five
worst nuclear plants in the United States and predicted that its emergency
cooling system "is virtually certain to fail." . . . (full
article)

MLK Day More Than A Dream
by Tommy Ates

"I have a dream.” The words were not just a
vision, but an attitude of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”
for all Americans. But, we had to get there first. 41 years later, where
are we? (full article)

Nabokov and “W”
by Daniel Estulin

I
recently saw a TV special on the First Lady -- Mrs. Laura Bush. As TV
cameras rolled I got a nagging feeling that I had experienced this once
before until I remembered one passage in “Bend Sinister” written by a
Russian born American writer Vladimir Nabokov in the years between
Hitler’s rise to power and his defeat, depicting the home life of two of
its protagonists: “With conventional humour and sympathy bordering upon
the obscene, Mr. Etermon and the little woman were followed through all
mentionable stages of their existence, which despite the presence of cozy
furniture and high tech gadgets did not differ essentially from the life
of a Neanderthal couple.” . . . (full
article)

The U.S. Supreme Court and
The Imperial Presidency: How President Bush Is Testing the Limits of His
Presidential Powers
by John W. Dean

Can the President of
the United States arrest any American he suspects of being a terrorist and
toss him in a military brig, deny him a lawyer, omit to bring any charges
against him -- yet indefinitely keep him imprisoned nonetheless?
(full article)

Globalization and the Rise of the Radical
Right
by Yacov Ben Efrat

At a time when people
speak of a new world order, when production, capital, the labor force, and
the market are all being internationalized, when borders no longer seem
important, suddenly there emerges the phenomenon known as the radical
right, associated with extreme nationalism. We see it in Europe and in the
US administration, while among the have-nots we find its counterpart in
Islamic fundamentalism. Before what, then, do we stand: before an era of
globalization or before one of nationalism and religious fanaticism? Is
the world opening or closing?
(full article)

Benny Morris is the
dean of Israeli "new historians," who have done so much to create a
critical vision of Zionism--its expulsion and continuing oppression of the
Palestinians, its pressing need for moral and political atonement. His
1987 book,
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, chronicled the
Zionist murders, terrorism, and ethnic cleansing that drove
600,000-750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, thus refuting the
myth that they fled under the orders of Arab leaders. . . But in an
astonishing recent Ha'aretz interview, after summarizing his
new research, Morris proceeds to argue for the necessity of ethnic
cleansing in 1948. He faults David Ben-Gurion for failing to expel all
Arab Israelis, and hints that it may be necessary to finish the job in the
future. Though he calls himself a left-wing Zionist, he invokes and
praises the fascist Vladimir Jabotinsky in calling for an "iron wall"
solution to the current crisis. Referring to Sharon's Security Wall, he
says, "Something like a cage has to be built for them. I know that sounds
terrible. It is really cruel. But there is no choice. There is a wild
animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another." He calls the
conflict between Israelis and Arabs a struggle between civilization and
barbarism, and suggests an analogy frequently drawn by Palestinians,
though from the other side of the Winchester: "Even the great American
democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the
Indians." . . . (full article)

In Iraq, Timing Is Everything
by Ronald Bruce St. John

The Bush
administration, in the mid-November Agreement on Political Process signed
by L. Paul Bremer for the Coalition Provisional Authority and Jalal
Talabani for the Iraqi Governing Council, came face to face with the
fundamental issue in Iraq. In the pursuit of democracy, does the United
States work out a process and a calendar that fits Iraqi needs or one that
dovetails with the logic of the 2004 presidential election? Unfortunately,
but not surprisingly, the White House opted for the latter. . . (full
article)

US Contradicts Itself On
Democracy In Iraq
by Sam Hamod

Once
again, the U.S. government is contradicting itself with regard to
democracy in Iraq. By denying the people a chance to vote, with UN
monitors, the U.S. is pushing the idea of selected caucuses with voting to
be done in limited ways; by doing this, the U.S. is showing that it is
being hypocritical when it says it wants “democracy” for Iraq. What it
actually wants is a fractured country, with Shi’a, Sunni and Kurds all
having small sections of the country and a legislature that will be
powerless to agree on anything because of these three divisions. If we are
to be the leader in "democracy," then we have to be consistent and
responsible in our behavior; otherwise, we will continue to be seen as a
hollow imitation of democracy in the third and even in other first world.
. . (full article)

Libyan Disarmament a
Positive Step,
But Threat of Proliferation Remains
by Stephen Zunes

In a world seemingly
gone mad, it is ironic that one of most sane and reasonable actions to
come out of the Middle East recently has emanated from the government of
Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator long recognized as an international
outlaw. Libya's stunning announcement that it is giving up its nascent
biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs and accepting
international assistance and verification of its disarmament efforts is a
small but important positive step in the struggle to curb the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). It would be a big
mistake, however, to accept claims by the Bush administration and its
supporters that it was the invasion of Iraq and other threatened uses of
force against so-called "rogue states" which pursue WMD programs that led
to Libya's decision to end its WMD programs. . . (full
article)

Budget Cuts Threaten to
Close American River Parkway
by Dan Bacher

Tom
Stienstra, San Francisco Chronicle outdoor columnist and author,
once described the American River Parkway as the "crown jewel" of the
Sacramento region. For the hundreds of thousands of anglers, bicyclists,
runners, kayakers, picnickers and other users of this unique urban river
and parkway, this description is perfect. . . However, this wonderful
parkway and the great fishing and other recreational opportunities may be
shut down if the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors proceeds with
their proposed budget cuts. According to the Sacramento Bee front
page story on January 12, "the county likely will consider closing the
American River Parkway and other regional parks February 10 on its way to
cutting another $10 million and 92 jobs." . . . (full
article)

January 15-16

O’Neill’s Claims Against
Bush Supported By 1998 "War" Letters
to Clinton Signed By Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz
by Jason Leopold

Anyone
who doubts former Treasury Secretary
Paul O’Neill’s recent claims that President Bush mislead the public
and secretly planned the Iraq war eight months before the terrorist
attacks on Sept. 11 needs to read the two letters sent to then President
Bill Clinton in 1998 and Speaker of the House Trent Lott by current
members of the Bush administration urging Clinton to launch a preemptive
strike against Iraq. . . (full article)

America, Iraq, and Presidential
Leadership
by Senator Edward Kennedy

I believe that this
Administration is indeed leading this country to a perilous place. It has
broken faith with the American people, aided and abetted by a
Congressional majority willing to pursue ideology at any price, even the
price of distorting the truth. On issue after issue, they have moved
brazenly to impose their agenda on America and on the world. They have
pursued their goals at the expense of urgent national and human needs and
at the expense of the truth. America deserves better. . . Nowhere is the danger to
our country and to our founding ideals more evident than in the decision to
go to war in Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary
Paul O'Neill has now revealed what many of us have long suspected.
Despite protestations to the contrary, the President and his senior aides
began the march to war in Iraq in the earliest days of the Administration,
long before the terrorists struck this nation on 9/11. (full
article)

For decades, one of the most important
public voices of clarity has come from Ralph Nader. First known as a
“consumer advocate” in the 1960s, his focus soon broadened to include the
fundamental imperatives of fighting corporate power and promoting genuine
participatory democracy. When he ran for president in 1996 and more
vehemently in 2000, he seemed to embody a cause much greater than himself.
Nader was a leader with a keen sense of hearing ordinary people --
including activists strategically at work to improve our country. But now,
Nader seems to be so transfixed with his own vision that he’s much less
inclined to be listening. Many who supported his previous presidential
campaigns (myself included) are opposed to a 2004 Nader race -- and aghast
that he’s on the verge of deciding to go ahead with it. . . (full
article)

President from Podunk
Drilling Inc.
by John Chuckman

Paul O'Neill, in
interviews to publicize
a new book, offers candid snapshots of a President who doesn't even
discuss policy with some of his highest officials. It is interesting that
O'Neill got himself sacked as Treasury Secretary for voicing sound and
traditional conservative views on two Bush economic policies, the
imposition of import tariffs against steel and a gigantic, irresponsible
tax-cut. . . (full article)

A War in Search of a Reason
by Ivan Eland

Paul
O’Neill, George W. Bush’s former Secretary of the Treasury, has confirmed
what many critics of the Iraq war had already suspected to be a cynical
and self-serving Bush administration myth: that the September 11 attacks
had moved a reluctant president, who during his campaign had advocated a
“more humble U.S. foreign policy,” to invade and occupy Iraq. Despite
campaign rhetoric accusing the Clinton-Gore administration of being overly
interventionist, O’Neill asserts that going after Saddam Hussein was the
most important topic on the National Security Council’s agenda 10 days
after the president’s inauguration and eight months
before September 11. . . And there’s more cynical manipulation to
come. Rather than talking about democratizing Iraq and then the Middle
East by invading and occupying Iraq -- the public face of the intervention
-- the council meetings focused more on
divvying up Iraq’s oil booty. . . (full
article)

The
Great Auks, Wild Salmon, and Money
by Kim Petersen

The
recent peer-reviewed article in the journal Science on the risks of
consuming wild versus farmed salmon instantly drew a barrage of counter
claims by fish-farming advocates. How is the public to decide between the
opposing messages? Of course one should endeavor to determine what the
facts are and then decide. But how does one distinguish between factually
accurate versus inaccurate information? A look at the messengers and who
their backers are would be helpful in this regard. The biggest indicator
usually is to follow the money trail. . .
(full article)

Watching the HORROR of the
Patriot Act: How We Can Make a Difference
by Norma Sherry

Art
often imitates life. The star of a recent episode of the TV series, ‘The
Practice’(1/11/04,) was not James Spader or Sharon Stone, it was The US
Patriot Act – and what a despicable role it was. If there is still a
citizen unaware of the US Patriot Act and the soon to be Victory Act, and
how the US Patriot Act has eroded seven of ten amendments in our Bill of
Rights, this episode was a rude awakening..
(full article)

Not in Our Back Yard:
The Decline and Failure of American-Imposed Capitalism and the Rise of
Social Democracy/Leftist Ideology in Latin America
by Manuel Valenzuela

Ten years ago, deep in the
Lacandona jungle in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas a movement arose
like an early morning fog lifting up from the moist, rich ground. The
Zapatista Revolution began, January 1, 1994, the same day NAFTA was
implemented in Canada, the US and Mexico. . . Today, the small movement
that began in Chiapas ten years ago has, like an octopus extending its
tentacles, enveloped almost all Latin American nations, especially those
of South America. The region’s citizens are taking matters into their own
hands, creating a new dynamic to a once American dominated and subservient
area, unleashing mass unrest, mass solidarity and mass calls for change. .
. (full article)

While
The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown's historical mystery novel about the
Catholic Church, has topped the bestseller lists for months, and Mel
Gibson's controversial upcoming movie portraying the last day of Jesus
Christ has garnered much media coverage, a real-life battle for the hearts
and minds of Catholic voters may have recently tilted a few more degrees
to the right. In November, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
announced the formation of a task force aimed at holding Catholic
politicians accountable for their political positions. For years, only
fringe and far-right Catholic organizations demanded the heads of Catholic
politicos who broke with the Vatican on such issues as abortion and gay
rights. Now, it looks like the new Bishops-sponsored task force will be
exerting pressure to bring wayward legislators in line. . . (full
article)

With Us or Solaris
by Troy Skeels

According
to senior officials in the Bush Administration, the President is planning
a reinvigorated space program, including the establishment of a permanent
moon base. In addition to mining hydrogen and other energy sources, the
lunar base would be used to prepare and launch a human mission to Mars. .
. (full article)

I mourn for the idea
of freedom. It's a powerful, great philosophical notion. Yet too often, I
find myself cringing when I hear the words "free" or "freedom" because the
words are used to express truly dreadful selfish, reactionary sentiments.
To wit: A few weeks ago, Chris Matthews, the host of MSNBC's Hardball, was
badgering Howard Dean about unions (in fairness, I only read the
transcript and might have been projecting a brain imprint of Matthews'
foaming style). Matthews asked Dean, "Do you accept the right of
right-to-work states to say you don't have to join a union?" He was
demanding Dean declare whether he would do what Richard Gephardt has
pledged to do if elected president—eliminate laws that let a minority of
people dodge paying their fair share in shouldering the task of getting
better working conditions for everyone; in other words, paying dues to the
union which has been democratically elected by the majority. . . (full
article)

Researchers
at the multinational European Institute for Ruminant Research in La Vache,
Switzerland have published their first detailed analysis of the global
reach of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow
disease. Their findings show that the disease is much more prevalent than
previously believed and that its human counterpart, variant
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or vCJD, has been manifest in Europe and the
United States for many years. . . “These are very startling findings,” Dr.
Wahnsinn announced at a hastily convened press conference at the EIRR
laboratory in suburban La Vache, Switzerland. “But we can no longer hide
ourselves from the obvious truth. Human variant mad cow disease is not
only here and widespread, but it has been raging through the human
population for many years now. There are probably reporters among those of
you at this very news conference who are already infected and showing
subtle, early symptoms of the illness.” . . . (full
article)

The Splendid Failure of
Occupation, Part Six
Deliberation, Or Isaac Newton
and the Naughty Apple
by B.J. Sabri

Two
contentions emerged at the end of
part five. First, U.S. infatuation with its own military power is such
that inflicting an unprecedented mass killing is only a way to demonstrate
that power. Second, the U.S. deliberately used radioactive material on Iraq,
on Serbia-Kosovo, as well as in Afghanistan for reasons that go beyond
military imperatives. The question is how can we
substantiate a contention? Simple: prove it wrong by a method similar to
scientific refutation -- if you cannot prove it wrong, then it is probably
right! Under this premise, what is deliberation? . . . While small nations
may go to war in the name of territorial claims; imperialistic nations go to
war deliberately for imperialistic objectives. . .
(full article)

Natural Aesthetes:
Wildlife is Wonderful, We Don’t Need Any
Other Excuse to Protect It
by George Monbiot

Last week the
journal Nature published
a report suggesting that, by 2050, around a quarter of the world's
animal and plant species could die out as a result of global warming. To
these we must add the millions threatened by farming, logging, hunting,
fishing and introduced species. The future is beginning to look a little
lonely. Does it matter? To most of those who govern us, plainly not. To
most of the rest of us, the answer seems to be yes, but we are not quite
sure why. . .
(full article)

If the Sky is Falling, the
Chrisraelis are Coming!!
by Lane Pope

It
is customary as one year ends to reflect on our failures, successes, and
look to change in the next. On our agenda: Peace in the world? That may
not even be necessary as, in the Holy Land, The Christian Right seeks to
convert Israeli Jews to Christianity. . . (full
article)

January 13-14

Bush and the Supreme
Court: Going After the Bill of Rights
by Kurt Nimmo

The Sixth Amendment
was lopped off the Constitution earlier this week. AG Ashcroft can now
have you arrested -- more accurately, abducted and detained -- and thrown
in a military brig or sent to the Guantanamo concentration camp. Like
military dictators in Chile or Guatemala, or the Gestapo in Nazi Germany,
the Bushites don't have tell your family where you are, or even
acknowledge your detention. They can detain you for years, decades -- or
until Bush's war on "terr'sim" is over -- that is to say forever. All of
this is now perfectly legal -- or so the Supreme Court ruled the other day
when it refused to consider whether the government properly withheld names
and other details of hundreds of people detained after 9/11. In other
words, Bush may continue abducting people and throwing them in secret
prisons without charge. . . (full article)

Fascism and the American
Polity
by Walter Contreras Sheasby

The
Bush-Cheney Administration's assault on civil liberties is starkly
authoritarian and must be resisted with every bit of strength the broad
left can muster. The question here is whether we are experiencing a lurch
to the right by the governing elites or actually witnessing the rise of an
American fascism. . . (full article)

The Lies for War Unravel
by William Rivers Pitt

Air
Force Lt. Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski wore the uniform of the United States
military for most of her adult life. In the last few years, until her
retirement last April after 20 years of service, she has watched the
infrastructure of American foreign policy creation rot from the inside
out. Her view was not from the cheap seats, from some faraway vantage
point, but from the hallways where the cancer walked and talked. Lt.
Colonel Kwiatkowski worked in the same Defense Department offices where
the cadre of hawkish neoconservatives that came in with George W. Bush
trashed America's reputation, denigrated her fellow soldiers, and
recreated the processes of government into a contra-constitutional
laughingstock. William Rivers Pitt interviews Karen Kwiatowski . . . (full
article)

Iraq’s Right to Resist: Outside the
Spectacle
by M. Junaid Alam

Waging
war is a peculiar American pastime: its appeal does not diminish as
corpses multiply. Quite the contrary - each new round of this gruesome
spectacle is greeted with the greatest fervor by the elites, the loudest
applause from the intellectuals, and the proudest swagger of the patriots.
No effort is spared in hammering into the public consciousness two
absolute Truths about the contenders in this sordid spectacle: America is
absolutely good, and the Enemy absolutely evil. America, preaches an
appropriate (and appropriately paid) representative of Capital, is the
savior of the world, the benevolent exporter of democracy, the deliverer
of freedom; The Enemy, whatever small, poor, far-away and relatively
defenseless nation it may be, is savage, senseless, a direct and immediate
threat to American interests which must be destroyed. . . (full
article)

Lerner, Said And The
Palestinians
by M. Shahid Alam

Very few
intellectuals in our times would measure up to Edward Said in the eulogies
he received upon his death last year. Indirectly, every obituary, tribute,
essay, reminiscence honoring his memory was a rebuke to the mercenaries
who populate our media, academia and that execrable category, think tanks.
But would they notice? Yet, I chanced upon one obituary notice that I
found troubling. I was troubled because it was from Rabbi Michael Lerner,
who has earned the opprobrium of America’s Jewish establishment for
opposing the Israeli Occupation of West Bank and Gaza. . . (full
article)

From
the scandalous Nusseibeh-Ayalon agreement to the irreparably flawed Geneva
Accords, the last true Zionists -- with the crucial help of acquiescent
Palestinian officials -- have tried their best to resuscitate the
two-state solution with the declared intention of saving Zionism. But it
is arguably too little, too late. The two-state solution for the
Palestinian-Israeli conflict is really dead. Good riddance! But someone
has to issue an official death certificate before the rotting corpse is
given a proper burial and we can all move on and explore the more just,
moral and therefore enduring alternative for peaceful coexistence between
Jews and Arabs in Mandate Palestine: the one-state solution. . . (full
article)

Crank Call
by Peter Kurth

Gee,
only two weeks into the new year and I’ve already got a case of the “what
ifs?” What if we had an honest government? What if our media told the
truth? What if Americans studied world history, or, for that matter, their
own? Really, you’d think with all those bestselling biographies of the
Founding Fathers floating around -– John Adams, Benjamin Franklin,
Alexander Hamilton, etc. -- people would be learning something. But I
guess they never do. “I wander alone, and ponder,” as Adams said. “I muse,
I mope, I ruminate. We have not men fit for the times.” I’m talking about
“the Bush and Hitler thing,” as I see it called, the giant flap created
last week over a couple of TV ads that never aired. These commercials –-
two of them -- were entries in the “Bush in 30 Seconds” campaign, a
nationwide competition for anti-Bush TV spots sponsored by the MoveOn.org
Voter Fund. . .
(full article)

There's
something strange going on in the Democratic Party. While George Bush's
buddies dominate the vote counting business with no apologies to anyone
about this rather incredible conflict-of-interest, Democrats are sending
mixed signals on this continuing train wreck for democracy. . .
(full
article)

Dixie Trap for Democrats
in Presidential Race
by Norman Solomon

Many
pundits say President Bush is sitting pretty, but this year began with new
poll data telling a very different story. A national Harris survey,
completed on Jan. 1 for Time magazine and CNN, found that
just 51 percent of respondents said they were "likely" to vote for Bush in
November, compared to 46 percent "unlikely." When people were asked to
"choose between Howard Dean, the Democrat, and George W. Bush, the
Republican," the margin for Bush was only 51-43, and when the survey
focused on "likely voters" the gap narrowed to 51-46. While other polls
have some different numbers, clearly the race for the White House could be
quite close. But one of the obstacles to Democratic success is the
pretense of having a chance to carry a bunch of Southern states. Actually,
for a Democratic presidential campaign in 2004 -- in terms of money,
travel time, rhetoric and espoused ideology -- Dixie is a sinkhole. . . (full
article)

Nader and the Newmanites
by Doug Ireland

What in the world is
Ralph Nader doing in bed with the ultrasectarian cult-racket formerly
known as the New Alliance Party? That's the question raised by Nader's
January 11 appearance as the featured speaker at a conference in Bedford,
New Hampshire, of so-called "independents" that is nothing more than a
front for the New Alliance crazies. . . (full
article)

Global Warming: Not Just Another Issue
by Ted Glick

This is not just
another issue. It is an absolutely central one. There is widespread
agreement in the world scientific community that unless we dramatically
shift from the use of fossil fuels to the use of clean and renewable
energy, we are facing a truly apocalyptic future. Among the likely
consequence . . . (full article)

More Trouble for Bremer (and Iraq)
by Tommy Ates

As if bombings,
industrial sabotage, and coalition casualties weren’t enough, Presidential
Envoy to Iraq Paul Bremer has more trouble on his hands. Top Shiite Muslim
cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani repeated his call for early elections
before the United States cedes control over Iraq to the U.S.
coalition-appointed Governing Council. Or else. . . (full
article)

Canada in the Crossfire
by Heather Wokusch

Canadian
Prime Minister Martin is due to meet George Bush today at the "Summit of
the Americas" in Mexico. While missile defense, terrorism and trade issues
will no doubt top their agenda, an equally crucial matter will be hidden
from the headlines: the raging Franco-US battle and its troubling
implications for Canada. . .
(full article)

Logical Media Lunacy
by David Edwards and Media Lens

In the last hours of
a momentous year for the media, both the BBC and ITN reported that Dotty,
an English bull terrier owned by Princess Anne, had been cleared by
Buckingham Palace of fatally wounding Pharos, one of the Queen's corgis. A
second bull terrier, Florence, it seemed, had been responsible. The
reports were the last in a week-long series on the attack - the BBC
website records mentions of the story on December 24, 28, 30 and 31. In
mid-December, the news also broke that David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey
Group (ISG) searching for Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, would
“leave his post prematurely” in the next few months “amid dwindling
expectations that there is anything to be found”. (‘Iraq weapons hunter to
quit early as hopes of finding arsenal dwindle’, Julian Borger, The
Guardian, December 19, 2003) This was “a big blow to the
administration”, one that would “signal the effective end of the search
for weapons of mass destruction," according to Joseph Cirincione, a
weapons expert at the Carnegie Endowment Institute for Peace in
Washington. "Some will continue looking”, Cirincione added, “but very,
very few expect there to be any significant finds at this point". (Ibid)
Kay’s early departure was big news -- the final disaster for the
Bush-Blair claims on WMD -- but it was afforded only a fraction of the
coverage granted the story of the attack on the Queen’s corgi. . . (full
article)

Colombia’s Winds of Change
by Wilson Borja

An old legend says
that when God made Colombia, St. Peter asked, “Why have you given so much
natural wealth to one country?” God replied, “You haven’t seen the leaders
I will give them yet.” It is this same wealth that is at the heart of the
West’s close interest in Colombia, and it is this same poor leadership
that explains why Colombia has so frequently handed it over to them. For
despite Colombia possessing 16 of the world’s 22 most desirable resources,
including oil, gold, platinum, emeralds and some of the richest soils in
the world, 64 per cent of Colombians live in poverty. And while 2.5
million families have no homes and 3.5 million children have no school to
attend, a mere one percent of the population own well over half of
Colombia’s land. Colombia’s wealth could benefit not just the Colombian
people, but many throughout the world. The fact that it has only benefited
a few at the top, explains the 19 conflicts that have blighted Colombia
since independence. . . (full article)

January 12

Bush Should be Facing "A
Long, Hard Slog" on Campaign Trail, but Dems Too Busy Fighting With Each
Other
by Jason Leopold

You’d
think that President Bush would be facing, to quote Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld, a
long,
hard slog in his bid to recapture the White House for a second term
what with all the information trickling out of the president’s
administration the past few months showing that senior administration
officials knowingly mislead the American public about the reasons for
launching a preemptive attack against Iraq. But, unfortunately, there’s
too much infighting taking place among the nine Democrats campaigning for
their party’s presidential nomination and not enough attention to the
administration’s misdeeds. Too bad, because this is the type of ammunition
that even the weakest Democratic candidate should be able to easily spin
to convince voters that Bush should be replaced come November. . . Maybe
the drama now unfolding will put a permanent dent in Bush’s armor once and
for all. Bush’s former Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, has revealed in a
new book,
The Price of Loyalty, that the
Iraq war was
planned just days after the president was sworn into office. . . (full
article)

True Heroes Will Help
Beggars Through Another Day
by Barbara Sumner Burstyn

Letters to the
editor are often a source of inspiration. Like the recent letter to the
[New Zealand] Herald headlined "Meet a true hero", in which Rob
Roche, of Parnell, told us about his trip to the United States. He and his
wife were concerned by all the beggars intoning their endless mantra, "got
any change." Luckily for Mr. Roche, he was advised by friends that the
beggars were not interested in gainful employment in a country where
welfare was "evidently available." Then, back home, our world traveler was
heartened to find a disabled man selling chocolates, thereby earning his
keep. A true hero, Mr. Roche said. . . With an election coming up,
President George W. Bush has just drafted a budget that will continue to
reduce the viability of the poor, with such stellar moves as further
limiting rental assistance vouchers, and eliminating some job training and
employment programs. (full article)

The Cleaning Lady
by Phillip A. Farruggio

She
works hard for her money, as the song relates. She's the cleaning lady,
the one who gets on her knees and scrubs your toilet of all the things
that none of us would ever wish to look at, let alone touch. She mops and
dusts and vacuums your house for $40-$50 bucks, then hurries off to her
next job, if she's so lucky. Does this 5 days a week, pulling in anywhere
from $400 -$500, minus her supplies and gas, and sweat and aches. Then she
has to factor in the nanny who watches her boy so she can work at all.
That's another $150 off the top. Even still, her 2 year college degree
could never get her that much in some white collar job- not with today's
economy. So, she's the "cleaning lady", trading in respectability for some
green. . .
(full article)

Does "Star Reporter" Always Equal
Accurate Reporter?
by Regan Boychuk

Of course, it is
completely legitimate for newspapers to publish eye-witness accounts of
breaking news events. Nevertheless, in the interest of accuracy, those
newspapers owe their readers follow up to ensure what they publish can be
trusted. The recent resignation of USA Today star reporter Jack Kelley
amid allegations he falsified stories offers a poignant example. . . One
report that deserves scrutiny is Kelley's 23 October 2000 dispatch from
the Israeli-occupied West Bank. . . (full
article)

The Journalist as War Criminal
by Ahmed Amr

In 1946, Julius
Streicher, the Editor of Der Sturmer, an anti-Semitic paper, was
sentenced to hang by the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal for
Nazi War Crimes. In sentencing him, the tribunal gave as cause the
evidence that “with knowledge of the extermination of the Jews in the
Occupied Eastern Territory, this defendant continued to write and publish
his propaganda of death.” Streicher was convicted of conspiracy to commit
crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. . . Half a century
later, the Streicher case was cited as a precedent for convicting three
Hutus of using the media to incite genocide against Tutsis. The three
judges presiding over the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda set
another precedent by declaring that “those who control the media are
accountable for its consequences”. According to the BBC, the chief
prosecutor, Hassan Bubacar Jallow, said that “The tribunal has established
an international precedent that those who use media to target a racial or
ethnic group for destruction will face justice." He also stated that “the
verdict would serve as a warning for journalists and editors in other
conflicts.” . . . A few years after the genocide in Rwanda, Daniel Pipes
writing in the National Post (7/18/2001), recommended that the
Israeli government intensify the brutality of the occupation.
His specific recipe for new forms of collective punishment against the
residents of the West Bank and Gaza was to accelerate the pace of economic
warfare against the population and "permit no transportation of people or
goods beyond basic necessities. Shut off utilities to the PA. Raze the
PA's illegal offices in Jerusalem, its security infrastructure, and
villages from which attacks are launched.” Read that again and notice that
he was advocating "razing villages" a la Lidice. . . (full
article)

Abraham & Sons, LLP
by Adam Engel

Okay,
see I'm trying to figure out why half the world's population still
believes in angry sky gods who HATE PEOPLE (especially women). This much I
got: Jews tried to ruin all the fun in the ancient world (they sure tried
to ruin my fun as a kid) by slaughtering anyone who wouldn't kiss the
spacious yet invisible tuchass of Yahweh. Then Jesus came along and tried
to loosen things up -- not too much, but enough -- but the Rabbis fingered
him to the Romans (Americans in sandals) who nailed him to a cross to show
the world, ancient and modern, that that's what everybody who tried to
live his own life was in for: pain, pain and more pain (forgive them,
Pops, they knew not what they did? Damn straight they did!). But just
because the West has been so barbarically cruel and despotic to the
Islamic world for the past two centuries (and during the Great Crusades)
it doesn't make Islam any better or worse than the previous two
nightmares. I'd say they're on equal footing. . . (full
spectacle)

January 11

The Declassified Ads
by Zbignew Zingh

For Sale:
One United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. Hardly used. First,
Fourth and Fifth Amendments missing. Will sell cheap or exchange for
handgun. Contact John Ashcroft, Box DOJ, Wash. DC

Wanted to Buy:
One Osama action toy. Needed for 2004 election year October surprise
party. Will pay extra for mint condition, but will purchase even if limbs
or head missing. Must not come with original American CIA
packaging. Contact GW Bush, c/o Caretaker, the White House, Wash. DC. . .
(full ad listings)

What They Don't Want You To Know
by John Pilger

The disaster in Iraq is rotting the Blairite
establishment. Blair himself appears ever more removed from reality; his
latest tomfoolery about the "discovery" of "a huge system of clandestine
weapons laboratories," which even the American viceroy in Baghdad mocked,
would be astonishing, were it not merely another of his vapid attempts to
justify his crime against humanity. (His crime, and George Bush's, is
clearly defined as "supreme" in the Nuremberg judgment.) This is not what
the guardians of the faith want you to know. Lord Hutton, who is due to
report on the Kelly affair, will provide the most effective distraction,
just as Lord Justice Scott did with his arms-to-Iraq report almost ten
years ago, ensuring that the top echelon of the political class escaped
criminal charges. . . What the normalizers don't want you to know is the
nature and scale of the "coalition" crime in Iraq . . Outside the work of
a few outstanding journalists prepared to go beyond the official compounds
in Iraq, the extent of the human carnage and material devastation is
barely acknowledged. . . (full article)

Toxic Farmed Salmon
by Kim Petersen

A
report in the latest issue of the prestigious academic journalScience finds
that farmed salmon has significantly higher amounts of suspected
carcinogens than their wild counterparts -- in fact a ten fold
increase, said collaborative study team member David Carpenter in an
interview on the CBCRadio program “As it Happens.”
Scientists from six research centers investigated European, North
American, and South American farmed salmon purchased in markets and
compared them to the five species of wild Pacific salmon. The research
points to the fish feed as a likely source of the heightened toxicity in
farmed salmon. Dr. Carpenter said the fish feed was produced from “trash
ocean fish” that people don’t eat. These “trash fish” had high
concentrations of industrial pollutants. . .
(full
article)

That Vision Thing: US Life
in the Time of Mad Cow
by Seth Sandronsky

Mad
cow disease detected in Washington state as last year faded is having many
consequences, from Congress to Main Street. One is that more light is
being shed, slowly, on this thing called the market. . . (full
article)

Bush’s Education Policies
Aim To Undermine: Democracy and
Dumb Students Down
by Allen Snyder

BushCo
hates America ’s public schools. Their education policies are proof
positive of it. They’re specifically designed not just to dismantle the
‘free’ public education system, but more deeply, to undermine American
democracy and consolidate right-wing conservative and religious political
power. . . (full
article)

Bush as Hitler? Let's Be
Fair
by Alexander Cockburn

Beyond
the shared enthusiasm of the Fuehrer and all US presidents (with the
possible exception of Warren Harding) for mass murder as an appropriate
expression of national policy, I've never seen any particularly close
affinity between Adolf Hitler and the current White House incumbent but
the Republican National Committee seems peculiarly sensitive on the
matter. . . (full
article)

The Young Bushite
by Kyle Sleeth

Being
a young white male in California, I encounter an abundance of ignorance
stemming from other young white males. My friend -- let's call him Wally
-- is a prime example. . . (full
article)

The Year of the Fake
by Naomi Klein

Don't think and
drive. That was the message sent out by the FBI to roughly 18,000 law
enforcement agencies on Christmas Eve. The alert urged police pulling over
drivers for traffic violations, and conducting other routine
investigations, to keep their eyes open for people carrying almanacs. Why
almanacs? Because they are filled with facts--population figures, weather
predictions, diagrams of buildings and landmarks. And according to the FBI
Intelligence Bulletin, facts are dangerous weapons in the hands of
terrorists, who can use them to "to assist with target selection and
pre-operational planning." But in a world filled with potentially lethal
facts and figures, it seems unfair to single out almanac readers for
police harassment. As the editor of The World Almanac and Book of Facts
rightly points out, "The government is our biggest single supplier of
information." Not to mention the local library: A cache of potentially
dangerous information weaponry is housed at the center of almost every
American town. The FBI, of course, is all over the library threat, seizing
library records at will under the Patriot Act. . . (full
article)

Syrian Truths
by Nick Pretzlik

Damascus: Although
Syria is not yet a failed state, it is in danger of becoming one. Without
the support received from Egypt and the Soviet bloc during the cold war
era the economy has decayed alarmingly. However, the country is not a
basket case. It has a wealth of natural resources and a sophisticated
population more than capable of exploiting them. Why then is the West not
rushing to lend it support? Unfortunately for Syria, in the eyes of the US
it is deemed to be non-compliant, a capital crime with the Bush
Administration. . . (full article)

January 8-10

Running On Empty: Ralph Nader Shouldn’t
Run in 2004
by Norman Solomon

Ralph Nader
plans to announce this month whether he'll be running for president in
2004. Some believe that such a campaign is needed to make a strong
political statement nationwide. But if Nader does run this year, what kind
of support -- in the form of volunteers, resources and votes -- could he
reasonably expect?
(full article)

Interrogation, Torture,
the Constitution, and the Courts
by Joanne Mariner

In
concluding last month that prisoners held on the Guantanamo naval base in
Cuba have the right to challenge their detention in federal court, the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit focused on the question of
Guantanamo's legal status. Much of the court's long and scholarly opinion
is taken up by a close examination of the terms of the 1903 lease
agreement between the U.S. and Cuba, their meaning in Spanish, their
interpretation in analogous treaties, and other fairly technical minutiae.
But a few phrases that lie near the end of the majority opinion grab the
reader's attention. . .
(full article)

Help the Israeli Refusniks
Sentenced to Prison
by Neve Gordon

On
January 4th, an
Israeli Military Court sentenced five refuseniks, Noam Bahat, Hagai
Matar, Adam Maor, Shimri Tsameret and Matan Kaminer to one year in jail
for refusing to enlist. The judges declared that the five conscientious
objectors deserved to be harshly punished since they questioned the
morality of the military's actions and challenged the legitimacy of the
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. . . (full
article)

Apocalypse Cow: US Needs to do the Right
Thing to Stop Mad Cow Disease
by John Stauber

When
Sheldon Rampton and I wrote our 1997 book,
Mad Cow
USA: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?, it received favorable reviews
from some interesting publications such as the Journal of the American
Medical Association, New Scientist, and Chemical &
Engineering News. Yet although the book was released just before the
infamous Texas trial of Oprah Winfrey and her guest Howard Lyman, for the
alleged crime of "food disparagement," the book was ignored by the
mainstream media, and even most left and alternative publications failed
to review it. Apparently many people who never read it at the time bought
the official government and industry spin that mad cow disease was just
some hysterical European food scare, not a deadly human and animal disease
that could emerge in America. . . (full
article)

Could Mad Cow Disease
Already be Killing Thousands of
Americans Every Year?
by Michael Greger, M.D.

October 2001,
34-year-old Washington State native Peter Putnam started losing his mind.
One month he was delivering a keynote business address, the next he
couldn't form a complete sentence. Once athletic, soon he couldn't walk.
Then he couldn't eat. After a brain biopsy showed it was Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease, his doctor could no longer offer any hope. "Just take him home
and love him," the doctor counseled his family. Peter's tragic death,
October 2002, may have been caused by Mad Cow disease. Seven years earlier
and 5000 miles away, Stephen Churchill was the first in England to die.
His first symptoms of depression and dizziness gave way to a living
nightmare of terrifying hallucinations; he was dead in 12 months at age
19. Next was Peter Hall, 20, who showed the first signs of depression
around Christmas, 1994. By the next Christmas, he couldn't walk, talk, or
do anything for himself. Then it was Anna's turn, then Michelle's.
Michelle Bowen, age 29, died in a coma three weeks after giving birth to
her son via emergency cesarean section. Then it was Alison's turn. These
were the first five named victims of Britain's Mad Cow epidemic. They died
from what the British Secretary of Health called the worst form of death
imaginable, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a relentlessly progressive and
invariably fatal human dementia. The announcement of their deaths,
released on March 20, 1996 (ironically, Meatout Day), reversed the British
government's decade-old stance that British beef was safe to eat. . . (full
article)

The Fed and the Bubble
by Mark Weisbrot

Alan
Greenspan used the occasion of his speech to the American Economic
Association to defend his legacy. His 16-year record as Chairman of the
Federal Reserve is certainly mixed, but there is one mistake he shouldn't
be allowed to brush off: the stock market bubble. . . (full
article)

Whither America's
Homegrown Terrorists: In Rush to Fingerprint Foreign Visitors, has
Government Lost Sight of America's Homegrown, Religiously-Inspired
Anti-government Terrorists?
by Bill Berkowitz

While it's wise for the
government to be vigilant about al-Qaeda-type threats, are law enforcement
officials so fixated on foreign groups that they're overlooking threats
from America's homegrown terrorists? Is the mainstream media so consumed
by "chatter"
that they're giving America's antigovernment and religious extremists a
pass? (full article)

Uncharitable Care: How Hospitals Are
Gouging and Even
Arresting the Uninsured
by The Staff of Democracy Now!

What
do the Emir of Kuwait and the working poor of the United States have in
common? Not much, except when it comes to paying for health care in the
United States. They all pay the highest price: up to 500% more than the
hospital receives from insured patients. That's because hospitals
negotiate discounts with big institutions like insurance companies, HMOs
or the government that require payment of only a fraction of the listed
charges. Those institutions have substantial bargaining power and can
guarantee hospitals a certain number of patients. Uninsured people, on the
other hand, have no bargaining power and are left to fend for themselves
once they get their bills. . . (full article)

The Price of Ignorance
by Gideon Levy

The
suicide bomber at the Geha Junction, Shehad Hanani, was from Beit Furik,
one of the most imprisoned villages in the territories that is surrounded
by earth roadblocks on all sides. It's a place where women in labor and
the sick have to risk walking through fields to get to the hospital in
adjacent Nablus. At least one woman in labor, Rula Ashatiya, gave birth at
the Beit Furik checkpoint and lost her infant. Few Israelis are capable of
imagining what life is like in Beit Furik: the almost universal
unemployment, poverty, endless siege and humiliations of life inside a
prison. A young man like Hanani, who was 21, had no reason to get up in
the morning other than to face another day of joblessness and humiliation.
However, Israelis have little interest in knowing the lay of the land from
which terror springs. The Israeli media have next to nothing to say about
life in Beit Furik. By the same token, few Israelis heard about the
killing of the suicide bomber's relative, Fadi Hanani, 10 days ago in
Nablus, just as they hadn't heard about all the killings of Palestinians
in the past few months. Life in Beit Furik and the killing in Nablus do
not justify a suicide bombing at a bus station, but whoever wants to fight
terror must first and foremost improve life in Beit Furik. . .
(full
article)

With Friends Like These US
Enemies Don’t Seem As Bad
by Ivan Eland

The
media made much of President Bush’s “axis of evil” -- much as
administration “spinners” had hoped. The excessive demonization of the
admittedly autocratic Iran, North Korea, and Iraq allowed the
administration to build public support for an aggressive invasion of Iraq
as well as hard-line policies toward these “rogue” states. But a more
appropriate moniker might be “axis of exaggeration.” The Bush
administration has failed to find unconventional (nuclear, biological and
chemical) weapons in Iraq or to provide convincing evidence that the crude
and limited super weapons programs in any of these three nations actually
constitute a threat to a superpower half a world away. Perhaps as shocking
as the administration’s exaggeration of the threat from these three
“rogues,” is the unacknowledged real danger posed by snuggling up to
“friendly” despotic countries -- Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt -- the
Bush administration’s “axis of expediency.” . . . (full
article)

Shot For A Mercedes And
Left To Die
by Robert Fisk

Maybe
my driver had a premonition. All the way back from Basra, he was nervous,
anxious not to stop at villages - even petrol stations - for fear of
thieves. "Everywhere there are Ali Babas," he kept saying. And no sooner
did we reach Baghdad than he went home to a house of tears and agony and
mourning. His brother-in-law, Mohamed, had just become the latest victim
of "New" Iraq, shot by car thieves and left to bleed to death for half an
hour at a motorway intersection. . . (full
article)

Why Did Attorney General Ashcroft Remove Himself From The Valerie Plame
Wilson Leak Investigation?
by John W. Dean

Recently, Attorney General John Ashcroft
removed himself from the investigation into who leaked the identity of
covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. Since the announcement, there has
been considerable speculation as to why this occurred, and what it means.
Some think the move suggests the inquiry will be scuttled -- and Ashcroft
is ducking out early to avoid the heat. But that seems unlikely. The new
head of the investigation, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is a high profile,
well-respected U.S. Attorney, who runs one of the more important offices
in the country, Chicago's. Fitzgerald is also a close friend of Deputy
Attorney General James Comey, who announced his appointment. It seems
unlikely that Fitzgerald was brought in merely to kill the case. Others
believe that Ashcroft's decision to remove himself suggests that the
investigation must be focusing on people politically close to Ashcroft,
and that Ashcroft thus pulled out because he knew he would be criticized
whatever he did. That is certainly possible. But as I will explain, I have
a slightly different take on what has occurred and why. Here is what the
latest positioning of the tea leaves tells me. . . (full
article)

Climate Catastrophe: The Ultimate Media
Betrayal
by David Edwards and Media Lens

Today’s
Guardian and Independent newspapers both report that over
the next 50 years, global warming could drive a quarter of land animals
and plants into extinction. According to a four-year research project by
scientists from eight countries, published today in the prestigious
journal Nature, 1 million species will have disappeared by 2050. The
findings have been described as “terrifying” by the report’s lead author,
Chris Thomas, professor of conservation biology at Leeds University.
Professor Thomas said: "When scientists set about research they hope to
come up with definite results, but what we found we wish we had not. It
was far, far worse than we thought, and what we have discovered may even
be an underestimate." . . .
(full article)

January 7

Saddam's Defense: Call Bush Senior to the
Stand
by Kurt Nimmo

Is
it possible French lawyer Jacques Vergès will be allowed to defend Saddam
Hussein? Vergès told AFP on December 19 that if called to defend Saddam,
he'd march a slew of US and European witnesses to the stand. At the top of
the list are Reagan and Bush Senior. "Right now the former Iraqi regime is
being blamed for certain events that took place at a time when its members
were treated as allies or friends by countries that had embassies in
Baghdad and ambassadors not all of whom were blind (to Iraqi crimes),"
said Vergès. "Today, this indignation appears to me contrived." "When we
reprove the use of certain weapons (we need to know) who sold these
weapons," he said about Iraq's past purchase of arms from France, Britain,
the United States, and Russia. "When we disapprove of the war against Iran
(we need to know) who encouraged it." . . . (full
article)

Sick Puppies
by John Chuckman

The
title is not part of my usual vocabulary, but sometimes an expression fits
so perfectly that it becomes irresistible. And so it is for the authors of
a neo-con "manifesto" on foreign policy. The Gomer Pyle of American
Presidents recently was presented with a plan to reorder much of the
world, a plan intended to build on his remarkable achievements in Iraq and
Afghanistan, spreading resentment and future mayhem against Americans
across the world. . . (full article)

The Next War
by Doug Ireland

It’s
a helluva New Year’s present: a new neocon manifesto which wants to put
the United States on a course for war with three countries. Published the
day before 2004 by Random House, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on
Terror bears the signature of two of Washington’s most influential
ideologues. Richard Perle, known as the “Prince of Darkness”, helped put
together the now-famous 1999 neocon manifesto (signed by Donald Rumsfeld
and Dick Cheney, among others) calling for war on Iraq. David Frum is
Dubya’s former speechwriter, the man who coined “axis of evil” and put it
in the president’s mouth. . . (full
article)

Anarchism, Or The Revolutionary Movement
Of The 21st Century
by David Graeber and Andrej Grubacic

It
is becoming increasingly clear that the age of revolutions is not over.
It's becoming equally clear that the global revolutionary movement in the
21st century will be one that traces its origins less to the tradition of
Marxism, or even of socialism narrowly defined, but of anarchism.
Everywhere from Eastern Europe to Argentina, from Seattle to Bombay,
anarchist ideas and principles are generating new radical dreams and
visions. . . (full article)

The Exploitation of the
American Soldier, Part II: The Vietnam Example, Guinea Pigs and Systemic
Abuse
by Manuel Valenzuela

To fully understand the
epidemic that is the exploitation of the American Soldier one need look no
further than the 250,000 to 500,000 homeless veterans that on any given
day wonder the streets of the United States. Up to half a million
veterans, mostly those who fought in the terror-filled jungles of Vietnam,
have been forgotten in time, left to fend for themselves lost among
concrete jungles and steel-glass canyons. Forgotten by a government that
sent them across the globe to fight the evildoers of the moment, namely
Communists, most men fought in ghastly battles, witnessed appalling
atrocities, experienced death firsthand and saw gruesome injuries that
scarred them for life. . . (full
article)

The Splendid Failure of
Occupation, Part 5 of 22
America and Depleted Uranium: Infatuation or Deliberation?
by B.J. Sabri

Is
it reasonable to include different subjects such as the U.N.’s role in the
occupation of Iraq, the U.S. hyper-imperialistic agenda, and radioactive
“depleted” uranium (RDU) all in one argument? . . . The culpability of the
U.N. system in relation to the American use of RDU is flagrant and
requires no verification –- it never condemned its use in battle.
Consequently, we ended up with a paradox whereby two imperialist states
(the U.S. and the U.K.) preaching on the immorality of WMD and claiming a
self-given mandate to ban them, deliberately used them against their
designated enemies! This conveniently and ideologically structured
dualistic attitude toward the use of WMD resembles an association of paid
assassins giving solemn public seminars on the virtues of nonviolence and
the value of human life. . .
(full article)

SARS
has raised its infectious head again in southeastern China. The suspected
cause is the civet cat, prized for its exotic meat. Chinese officials have
ordered the immediate extermination of every captive civet cat in
Guangdong province. The civet cat had been pinpointed as the likely source
for the human contraction of the SARS corona virus earlier and its
capture, sale, and consumption was banned. Business pressures led,
however, to the lifting of the ban. Human health concerns were, in
essence, trumped by the pursuit of profit. It is emblematic of today’s
capitalist China. At one end of Tiananmen Square, just above the entrance
to the Forbidden City, a huge portrait of Mao Zedong, the first leader of
the People’s Republic of China, is prominent. Mao represents the victory
of socialism over feudalism. Yet the China of today is a far cry from the
revolution of the mid-twentieth century. One wonders why the portrait of
Mao still features so prominently at Tiananmen Square. A denial of Mao, as
many Chinese will tell you, would imply undercutting the legitimacy of the
ruling Chinese Communist Party. The upshot of all this is the oxymoronic
absurdity of a Communist Party espousing free market capitalism. . . (full
article)

Unilateral Delusion
by Roni Ben Efrat

Beside
the government and the Knesset, a parallel institution has developed in
Israel. It is known as the Herzlia Conference. All the "who's who" of
Israeli politics, the rich and the powerful, assemble there. Generals and
politicians announce their plans in Olympian serenity – without the
catcalls, backbiting and endless maneuvers that color our elected
institutions. This alternative arena suits the Prime Minister well. It is
the second consecutive year in which Ariel Sharon has sealed the
Conference with a "speech to the nation". Suspense, this time, was higher
than ever. Sharon's deputy and presumed trial balloonist, Ehud Olmert, had
given an interview to Yediot Aharonot (December 5). A
consensus-sniffing right-winger, Olmert stopped the breath of the nation
with a call for "the unilateral evacuation of most of the Territories and
parts of East Jerusalem and the division of the land of Israel into two
states with the border between them determined not by politics, national
sentiment or religious tradition, but by demography." Olmert was referring
to the projection that by 2012, the majority west of the Jordan River will
be Arab.
(full article)

The BBC on Hiroshima
by David Edwards and Media Lens

The
atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 was one of history’s
bloodiest single acts claiming 100,000 Japanese lives. Exposing men, women
and children to one million degrees of heat and a supersonic blast wave,
the attack had unimaginably horrific results. . . In last night’s
one-hour documentary on the bombing, Days That Shook The World, the BBC
spent 35 seconds examining the justification for the attack. This involved
presenting, unchallenged, the unfounded claim that the attack was required
to avoid one million US combat casualties in the event of an invasion of
the Japanese mainland. . . (full article)

Fit To Be Tamed
by Lee Hall

With
all the talk of the connection between human and nonhuman rights these
days, one might wonder why so little is said about pets. In North America
today, pet ownership is the most common context in which humans interact
with other animals; yet the institution has largely escaped critique. Use
of the word "pet" as a term of sexual objectification has rightly incurred
the ire of the socially aware, but the existence of the pet animal has
largely been taken as a given. . . (full
article)

January 5

Challenging Two-Party
Rule: The Avocado Declaration
by Peter Camejo

The Green Party is at a
crossroads. The 2004 elections place before us a clear and unavoidable
choice. On one side, we can continue on the path of political
independence, building a party of, by and for the people by running our
own campaign for President of the United States. The other choice is the
well-trodden path of lesser evil politics, sacrificing our own voice and
independence to support who the Democrats nominate in order, we are told,
to defeat Bush. The difference is not over whether to "defeat Bush" --
understanding by that the program of corporate globalization and the wars
and trampling of the Constitution that come with it -- but rather how to
do it. We do not believe it is possible to defeat the "greater" evil by
supporting a shamefaced version of the same evil. We believe it is
precisely by openly and sharply confronting the two major parties that the
policies of the corporate interests these parties represent can be set
back and defeated. Ralph Nader's 2000 presidential campaign exposed a
crisis of confidence in the two party system. His 2.7 million votes marked
the first time in modern history that millions voted for a more
progressive and independent alternative. Now, after three years of
capitulation by the Democratic Party to George Bush, they are launching a
pre-emptive strike against a 2004 Ralph Nader campaign or any Green Party
challenge. Were the Greens right to run in 2000? Should we do the same in
2004? The Avocado Declaration is based on an analysis of our two party
duopoly, and history of the system declares we were right, and we must
run. . . (full article)

Snipers: No Nuts In Iraq
by Mickey Z.

An
article by Eric Schmitt, in the January 2, 2004 edition of the New York
Times ("In Iraq's Murky Battle, Snipers Offer U.S. a Precision Weapon")
offered a fine illustration of how heavily conditioned a society we live
in. Consider the opening lines: "The intimate horror of the guerrilla war
here in Iraq seems most vivid when seen through the sights of a sniper's
rifle. In an age of satellite-guided bombs dropped at featureless targets
from 30,000 feet, Army snipers can see the expression on a man's face when
the bullet hits." Schmitt goes on to quote an American sniper boasting: "I
shot one guy in the head, and his head exploded. Usually, though, you just
see a dust cloud pop up off their clothes, and see a little blood splatter
come out the front." Schmitt also crows about a sniper's ability "to fell
guerrilla gunmen and their leaders with a single shot from as far as half
a mile away" all in the name of protecting "infantry patrols sweeping
through urban streets and alleyways." Schmitt explains: "Soldiering is a
violent business, and emotions in combat run high. But commanders say
snipers are a different breed of warrior - quiet, unflappable marksmen who
bring a dispassionate intensity to their deadly task." . . . (full
article)

Questions for the Peace
Movement: The U.S. Occupation of Iraq
by Joanne Landy

In February 2003, millions of people in the
United States and around the world protested the impending U.S.-led war on
Iraq. But today, even among opponents of the war, there is widespread
confusion on the question of the ongoing occupation. Many who opposed the
war before it began now argue that "Yes, it was a mistake to go into Iraq
in the first place, but now that we're there, we have to stay -- it's our
responsibility to ensure democracy to the Iraqi people and protect them
from chaos and civil war, as well as to promote global peace and
stability." Democratic presidential candidates Howard Dean and Carol
Moseley Braun make this argument, and it is an approach shared by many
non-politicians as well. In my view, this line of reasoning is seriously
flawed, and leads to disastrous consequences; it ignores the deeply
destructive, reactionary and inhumane character of the American role in
Iraq, and in the world. However, at the same time that the peace movement
opposes war and the continued U.S. military presence in Iraq, it also
needs to address the question of how to respond to ruthless dictators like
Saddam Hussein, to terrorism and to Islamic political fundamentalism. .. (full
article)

The Sum Total of My Body Parts
by Barbara Sumner Burstyn

It's
confession time again: the photo at the top of this column is not a true
likeness. Some of my lines are missing, erased courtesy of Photoshop
technology. Thinking I'd like this look in real life, I started
investigating new dermal filler products. The one the doctor recommended
is made with cadaver dermis. It comes in either dissolvable sheets or
micronized for easy injection into those tiny wrinkles and skin folds that
seem to spring up overnight. In soothing tones, the doctor assures me
there's nothing wrong with using cadaver dermis. Yes, he says, this
product is made from the skin of dead people. And, yes, they were organ
donors. But when I ask if the donor's gift of life-saving organs included
consent to use their skin in expensive, profit-heavy cosmetic procedures,
he's not so confident. . .
(full article)

One Novak, One Vote
by Ahmed Amr

I
don’t know about you, but I was starting to miss John Ashcroft. Where has
he been? It seems that he disappeared a few months ago and took the Plame
file with him. Word is he was too busy choreographing the "Ashcroft Trot"
to make a public appearance. Inside sources say that the "Ashcroft Trot"
is a very precise dance that involves a fake step forward on New Year’s
Eve and a couple of steps back by spring. The dance ends with a few steps
to the right after the November elections. Dance steps between Spring and
Fall are still on Ashcroft’s drawing board. Last week, after five months
of attempting to bury the probe, Ashcroft couldn’t spare a few moments to
announce his recusal from playing the Plame game. That task was left to
James Comey, the second in command at the Justice Department. Comey is now
technically in charge of the probe and has assigned Patrick Fitzgerald the
task of investigating the scandal. The reason given for distancing
Ashcroft from case was the "appearance of a conflict of interest" based on
"the totality of the circumstances and the facts and evidence developed at
this stage of the investigation." . . . (full
article)

"The British Said My Son
Would be Free Soon. Three Days Later
I Had His Body"
by Robert Fisk

The last time
Lieutenant Colonel Daoud Mousa of the Iraqi police saw his son Baha alive
was on 14 September, as British soldiers raided the Basra hotel where the
young man worked as a receptionist. "He was lying with the other seven
staff on the marble floor with his hands over his head," Col Mousa says
today. "I said to him: 'Don't worry, I've spoken to the British officer
and he says you'll be freed in a couple of hours.'" The officer, a second
lieutenant, even gave the Iraqi policeman a piece of paper and wrote "2Lt.
Mike" on it, alongside an indecipherable signature and a Basra telephone
number. There was no surname. "Three days later, I was looking at my son's
body," the colonel says, sitting on the concrete floor of his slum house
in Basra. "The British came to say he had 'died in custody'. His nose was
broken, there was blood above his mouth and I could see the bruising of
his ribs and thighs. The skin was ripped off his wrists where the
handcuffs had been."
(full article)

Homeland Insecurity
by Steven Hass

First
of all, happy new year...there, now that we got that out of the
way, let's get to it. Has anybody discovered where the security is to be
found in having a Department of Homeland Security? I have to be honest
with you - I don't feel a whole lot more secure having them around. But,
then again, I wasn't feeling very insecure before they were created. . . (full
article)

Palestinian Resistance Must Spare
Civilians
by Ramzy Baroud

Palestinian
resistance factions must stop targeting Israeli civilians, with or without
an officially bargained cease-fire and regardless of what Israel and its
reckless government do in response. This is imperative if the Palestinian
struggle is to safeguard its historic values and maintain its morality. .
.
(full article)

January 3-4

Bush's Police State: Going After the Left, Not al-Qaeda
by Kurt Nimmo

In
an apparently ludicrous turn of events, the FBI warned local law
enforcement across the country to be on the lookout for the latest al-Qaeda
manual -- the Farmer's Almanac. "The FBI is warning police nationwide to
be alert for people carrying almanacs, cautioning that the popular
reference books covering everything from abbreviations to weather trends
could be used for terrorist planning," reports the Bush Ministry of
Disinformation, Fox News Division. "It urged officers to watch during
searches, traffic stops and other investigations for anyone carrying
almanacs, especially if the books are annotated in suspicious ways." "If
the police discover anything "suspicious," they are to report it
immediately to their local Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), according to
the FBI bulletin released on Christmas Eve. JTTFs are new and relatively
unknown. They are essentially the FBI's vanguard -- a crucial and emerging
link between the FBI, various federal agencies, state law enforcement, and
local police departments. . . (full article)

Coffee and State Authority
in Colombia
by Josh Frank

The
global coffee industry has endured colossal changes over the past fifty
years. Production of beans has shifted from country to country.
Profiteering from the product has increased almost exponentially through
huge sales at retail outlets such as Starbucks and Seattle’s Best. But not
all involved in the coffee market have benefited equally. Small coffee
farmers have suffered tremendous loss. Environmental degradation has also
increased as ancient forests have been cleared in hopes that the bare land
can be transformed into fertile ground, worthy of growing cash crops.
Countries have lost entire export industries as multinational corporations
race to purchase the cheapest beans they can find. And no country has felt
the pain of these transformations greater than Colombia. . . (full
article)

George Will’s Ethics: None
of Our Business?
by Norman Solomon

We
can argue about George Will's political views. But there's no need to
debate his professional ethics. Late December brought to light a pair of
self-inflicted wounds to the famous columnist's ethical pretensions. He
broke an elementary rule of journalism – and then, when the New York
Times called him on it, proclaimed the transgression to be no one's
business but his own. . . (full article)

Mad Cow and Main Street
USA
by Seth Sandronsky

Mad
cow disease in America discovered during the recent holiday season may
well sway “consumer confidence” near and far. Yet this
disaster-in-progress is about far more than confident consumers. . . (full
article)

Why Bush Must be Captured
and Tried Alongside Saddam Hussein
by Bob Fitrakis

As
the new year unfolds, one unmistakable fact remains unreported in
America’s submissive mainstream media: our President George W. Bush is a
war criminal. Any attempt to state this obvious fact is ignored and any
Democratic Presidential hopeful who suggests we repudiate the new Bush
doctrine of American imperialism and instead, work for world peace, is
dismissed as a “vanity” candidate and told to drop out of the race. . .
(full
article)

God's Grandeur
by Richard Oxman

So help me, there will
be no more abominations within the progressive community such as Medea
Benjamin's listing of ten things to be grateful for in 2003 (on Common
Dreams)...without a confrontation. Howard Dean? The sales of Michael
Moore's and Al Franken's books? These are signs of progress? (full
article)

CBC Newspeak
by Kim Petersen

The
year 2004 has just been ushered in and nothing has really changed. The
resistance in Iraq continues and the news still reads the same. Well, not
quite. The first sentence of a Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation
(CBC) online news article reads: “Anti-U.S. fighters shot down a
helicopter near Fallujah, Iraq, on Friday, killing one American soldier
and wounding another.” “Anti-U.S. fighters.” What kind of biased nonsense
is this? What kind of deranged thought processes could have skewered the
language of the news in such a biased fashion? (full
article)

Although
President Bush's faith-based initiative -- one of the centerpieces of his
domestic agenda -- has yet to win congressional approval, ramifications of
the proposal has been felt in a number government agencies. The latest
agency to take up the president's faith-based call is the National Park
Service. Over the past several months, the NPS has brought Christian
displays to our national parks and creationist books to the souvenir shops
at the parks. It has also been reported that the NPS was considering
removing historical information it found "conservatively incorrect" from
historical documents and video presentations. . .
(full article)

After Samarra: Another US Massacre In The
"Sunni Triangle"
by Milan Rai

First reports were
unequivocal: "US forces killed 46 Iraqis after a military convoy was
ambushed in the town of Samarra last night [November 30] in the most
deadly firefight in the seven months since President Bush declared an end
to major combat operations in Iraq." (The London Times, 1 Dec., p.
1) . . . "US and Iraqi reports differed sharply. Mr Mohammed, the police
chief, said [on the first day] that only six Iraqis had been killed in the
clashes, along with one Iranian pilgrim. He accused US troops of 'firing
randomly' on Iraqi civilians after they had been ambushed “by one or two
people”. He said 54 Iraqis had been injured." (Financial Times, 2
Dec., p.11) . . .(full article)

Enough is Too Much
by Adam Engel

Dead
sheep shuffle. Do the dead sheep shuffle. Get in line. Waste your time.
Get yer gonads groped and your belongings touched by strangers' fingers.
Get shoved, get yelled at. "No, you ASS, don't go down THAT line, I said
THIS ONE HERE." . . . (full article)